FAKE NEWS EXPOSED: A Service of PoliticalChat.com

[whell]

Originally Posted by finnbow

A verdict in the case of Democracy Partners v. Project Veritas has been handed down, according to Joseph Sandler, an attorney for Democracy Partners. Project Veritas has been found liable on both counts: Unlawful wiretapping and fraudulent misrepresentation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/22/u...s-lawsuit.html

These deceitful clowns are what passes for investigative journalism on the Right.

Yup, we just can't have the truth coming out about the inner workings of the Dem party. Just to refresh memories about this:

https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/18/polit...-trump-rallies

Washington
CNN
—
A Democratic operative whose organization was helping Hillary Clinton’s campaign announced Tuesday that he would be “stepping back” from the campaign after an edited video suggested that he and other staffers hired people to attend Donald Trump’s campaign rallies and incite violence.

Robert Creamer – husband of Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky – announced his resignation in a statement after conservative activist James O’Keefe released a video under his organization Project Veritas Action, which showed Creamer and other operatives purportedly discussing methods for inciting violence at rallies for the Republican nominee.

This one isn't done yet, because is has relevance outside this case. Specifically:

https://www.axios.com/2022/09/23/pro...onsulting-firm

But the jury of five women and four men found former operative Allison Maass "breached a fiduciary duty" in the operation that "amounted to fraudulent misrepresentation" after she gained an internship at Democracy Partners "using a false name and story," Politico reports.

Undercover journalism is nothing new. It does have a bit of a checkered past, but there have been some significant stories in the public interest that have been sourced by undercover journalistic practices. If memory serves, years ago a Chicago newspaper actually purchased a bar where Chicago city officials hung out. The reason? So they could get the officials on hidden camera accepting bribes. A number of local stories about city of Detroit employee shinanigans were made public through undercover journalism.

If this ruling, the jury concluded that a reporter has a "fiduciary responsibility" to the subject of the interview. If that becomes the new legal standard, it would effectively take undercover journalism off the table as an information-gathering tool.

I think this boils down to a First Amendment issue. There's also US Federal case law that was potentially ignored when reaching an outcome in this case. For example:

In a win for freedom of the press, a federal court this month struck down an Iowa law making it a crime to lie about your intentions when accessing an agricultural production facility.

The “ag-gag” law, which was aimed at undercover journalists and activists, essentially prevented undercover investigations of the agricultural industry. In a lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Iowa, the court rightly found that the law violates the First Amendment.

No, I don't think this one is over yet.