1. Television News

 

 Television News 

   Living in a country where freedom of speech is a founding principle many do not realize the laws and regulations that Newsrooms across the nation must abide by. From defamation and copy right laws to rules set by the Federal Communications Commission and professional codes of ethics help to ensure that the truth is told. While every single news station leans in one political stance or another they must all adhere to these laws and regulations. 

    Defamation Laws ensure that false statements that could greatly harm a person or business's reputation. A person or business can sue a news station if they fill that the station has produced false statements about them. In an effort to avoid lawsuit newsrooms require that source be verified and has evidence. The information must also be documented before broadcast. After the 2020 U.S. presidential election Fox News was sued for defamation  by Dominion voting, a private company that was responsible for the voting machines now known as Liberty Vote. Dominion stated that Fox knowingly broadcasted false statements after several hosts and guests repeatedly aired claims that Dominion voting machines was involved in rigging the 2020 election. Fox News settled for $787.5 million in 2023 after internal messages showed that the claims were doubted by staff but was aired anyways. 

    The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates what broadcast stations can air and what they cannot. All public broadcast stations must be licensed by the FCC. These stations include ABCABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox affiliates as well as PBS. Stations that do not have to have a license is networks like CNN and MSNBC. The FCC ensures that the stations follow rules on indecency and obscenity, children's programming requirements, political broadcasting rules, Emergency Alert System participation, public inspection files, and technical signal standards. If a station does not comply to these regulations they could face fines, license suspension, or non- renewal of licenses.

    Professional Codes of Ethics also helps to ensure that journalist are staying true to the key principles: seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable and transparent. These principles make sure the information that journalist are airing is verified and that they are sensitive in the way that they report on it. The principles also ensure that journalists avoid conflicts of interest and that when errors do occur that they are corrected openly. 

    In 2024 the BBC violated the Professional Codes of Ethics after the aired a Panorama documentary  titled Trump: A Second Chance? The documentary included an edited version of President Donald Trump's Speech on the raid of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. It was later revealed by internal documents that the program had spliced two unrelated portions of the speech together. These two pieces of the speech made it seem like President Trump had directly encouraged supporters to violently storm the Capitol, when that was not the case. This incident raised questions about the BBC accuracy, transparency, and accountability.  

    In conclusion, people rely on the news stations to provide them with information about what is going on in the world around them. News stations are held to higher standards because of the amount of trust that society puts in them to provide accurate information. If it were not for these high standards brought on by regulations and Codes of Ethics it would be hard for society to rely on News Networks to provide vital information accurately.