All very admirable and uncontentious, one might think
While I support the idea, I think any attempt by the government to officially decide which press is trustworthy is and ought to be contentious.
If they tell provable lies, they’re not trustworthy. Something a jury can decide.
Glad I could help. Since this is the first time, I’ll waive my usual hourly fee.
How do you tell when a paper has told a lie versus made an error?
Do you deem all media outlets that publish or broadcast anything untrue to be untrustworthy? Seems pointless.
Do you have to prove intent? Good luck.
Disseminating false information, followed by not correcting it (refusing to or neglecting to) when the falsehood is reported to the outlet. No need to prove intent. And any retractions have to be displayed with the same prominence as the original article, and kept up for twice as long.
You need to look at how the UK press operates. There are large numbers of papers and sites that are nothing but propaganda outlets, and free-speech absolutism is just more brainless laissez-faire “let the market decide.” That has never worked, for the press or for anyhing else, and the relentless flood of disinformation is an existential threat to what little remains of democracy.
Anyway, the law handles false commercial speech all the time. So why is this any different? Will nobody think of the poor billionaires who can’t buy a paper or social-media site and massively amplify lies that serve their commercial or political agendas (and yeah, those are often overlapping)?
A new press regulation that required equal-prominence corrections would be welcome. I can imagine some issues with it (you’d need a lot of corrections for live unscripted programs!) but let’s assume they’re manageable. Then, what need is there for this trustworthiness categorisation? Any outlet that doesn’t abide by those rules is getting fined into oblivion.
Anyway, the law handles false commercial speech all the time. So why is this any different?
Because false commercial speech is typically only handled when it causes damages, which can then be estimated and sued for. How do you estimate the damages attributable to one paper printing a false rumour, which it said was printed in good faith and corrected at the first opportunity, but which may have led to riot? Maybe the riot would have happened anyway. Maybe it wouldn’t, but it also wouldn’t have happened if the rumour hadn’t been circulating on Facebook.
How do you estimate the damages attributable to the BBC for allowing Boris Johnson a platform to lie about the benefits of Brexit? To what extent did that contribute to Brexit happening? How much has Brexit cost the country? (There are estimates, but with a huge degree of uncertainty)
Commercial speech leads to identifiable decisions by definite parties through more or less identifiable processes. That is completely different when the decisions are taken by the millions of inhabitants of the country. You could attempt to apply the same process, but it would be an absolute quagmire and would definitely lead to wrong decisions due to the massive level of uncertainty inherent in doing that.
