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Hoi Polloi wrote:Interestingly, a court (SCOTUS?) said the media does not have any responsibility to tell the truth, just like the police don't have any responsibility to protect us.

I remember something about that now that you mention it. I don't remember how the ruling was worded, but I think from the legal standpoint I'd modify the term "any responsibility" either to "any requirement" or "any legal responsibility" to tell the truth. In other words there can be a higher standard for conduct than the minimum standard set by the law. For instance, I don't lie to the people I care about: it's irrelevant to me that lying is "legal." I was speaking to a moral obligation that is obviously an object of contempt and derision for the liars, hypocrites, and all around scoundrels who populate our media. From the legal standpoint I have to agree with the court: making it a legal requirement for the media to tell the truth would create much worse problems than tolerating their lies.

While I agree with a lot of what you say about the incident in question I have to take exception to this statement:

Clutch wrote: The slant WFAA reporter SGables puts on the story gives us insight into the bias of the media and a left wing agenda, and I support his ability to print the article. Many brave men have fought for him to exercise his right.

I don't agree that the media has any right to "slant" supposed "news" stories to service an agenda; and they most certainly don't have any right to lie. The media in this country gets extraordinary privileges under the presumption that they fulfill a public trust to provide information necessary to a functioning democracy --like free use of public property (airwaves), special access to people and places, and special treatment under the law-- and this special status confers upon them an obligation to tell the truth.

Nearly everything in the media today is a lie of some kind --usually a lie of omission that allows them to maintain the fiction that what they print is "factually" true. For at least the last thirty-years the media agenda has been to delegitimize gun ownership and self-defense. This media anti-gun propaganda has been extremely effective in Europe, Australia, and Britain.

What in the article by S Gables you very generously consider to be evidence of bias I consider to be evidence of dishonesty. Was it "like the Wild West"? Did the property owner "take the law into his own hands?" No. These statements don't add up to a "slant," they add up to a lie. Ever heard of Bernard Goetz? He shot a bunch of thugs on a subway back in 1984 and the media dubbed him the "subway vigilante." What's a "vigilante?" Wikipedia says: "A vigilante is someone who illegally punishes someone for perceived offenses, or participates in a group which metes out extralegal punishment to such a person." Dictionary.com says a vigilante is: "any person who takes the law into his or her own hands, as by avenging a crime."

So, when Gables says the property owner took the law into his own hands is calling him a "vigilante." Presuming that dictionaries or the internet are available to the likes of S Gables, that is a DELIBERATE mischaracterization, otherwise known as a lie.

The problem is there isn't much that can be done about these liars, except to challenge their lies whenever possible.