France- Paris City Council has authorized Mayor Anne Hidalgo to sue U.S. broadcaster Fox News for reporting there are “no-go zones” in the French capital where non-Muslims and police fear to venture.
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Officials voted Wednesday to file a lawsuit at a French court for defamation regarding comments on Fox News and a map it broadcast with eight such so-called off-limits areas circled in red. The report came when Paris was on high alert after attacks by Islamic radicals last month.
Fox was widely mocked for that report and for comments describing the English city of Birmingham as “totally Muslim.” The broadcaster later apologized for “some regrettable errors.”
Hidalgo vowed to “save Paris’ honor,” and stressed the importance of image for a top world tourist destination.
Fox News had no immediate comment.
They are awfully testy. It must be all the wine and rich food they consume.
Charlie Hebdo can say anything it wants in the name of a Free Speech, but Fox News can’t?
You can’t have it both ways…
Good, Paris is just bringing more bad publicity to itself.
The question at issue is whether there should be consequences for the misinformation and lying that passes for “news” on Fox. They have already won the legal right in the US to publicly lie without consequence. The laws in France may be different on this ground. I defend Fox’s right to lie and misrepresent, as even lying is freedom of speech. The defense to this in a free society is to expose their lies with the truth. What is truly sad is that there are so many people who blindly accept everything they hear on that network and never bother to check a single fact. If they did so, they would see what has been documented quite extensively and exposed in at least three studies – Fox viewers are less informed about the issues than people who don’t follow the news at all.