The latest legal battle over a name: Fox News vs. Al Franken (2 Viewers)

[Jack Briggs]

For the record, that would be Wilshire Boulevard. In addition to "fair and balanced," accuracy is nice too.

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

Jack, those words are straight from the horse's mouth.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

The link to the footage is dead

 

[Jack Briggs]

Jesse, I know that, which is why I commented!

 

[Matt Birchall]

The link to the footage is dead

Not for me--it worked yesterday morning, and it worked just fine, just now.

 

[Joseph S]

If you have some solid evidence of this claim that O'Reilly worked for "A Current Affair", I'd be interested in seeing it. I know I've been unable to find any.

He worked for A Current Affair before Inside Edition. It was a pretty low budget and local production at the time. If you say Current Affair began in 86, my assumption would be that he did this either before he joined ABC or on the side. I had seen him before several times on WCVB and that's why I remembered him when he popped up on the show initially.

 

[Jay Heyl]

He worked for A Current Affair before Inside Edition.

By "solid evidence" I meant something other than your personal recollection. Memories, particularly those from 17 years ago, make for particularly poor evidence.

 

[BertFalasco]

Jesse, that blog is amazing....

I have now seen the top of the mountain, and it is good.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Jay Heyl, please look at the link that I posted on page 2.

Here it is.

 

[D. Scott MacDonald]

So the quote that got him in trouble was:

All I've got to say is that 'Inside Edition' has won, I -- I believe, two Peabody Awards, the highest journalism award in the country" ("The O'Reilly Factor," May 8, 2000); and "A program that wins a Peabody Award, the highest award in journalism, and you're going to denigrate it?" ("The O'Reilly Factor," May 19, 2000).

I don't see him taking credit for the award - merely pointing out that the show had won one. So the only discrepancy was that it was actually a "Polk" award and not a "Peabody" award. IMHO, this is much ado about nothing (and no, I am not a big fan of Bill).

 

[Jay Heyl]

Jay Heyl, please look at the link that I posted on page 2.

Been there, read that. All I see there is further support that O'Reilly mentioned the Peabody/Polk award as an indication that "Inside Edition" was and is a quality program. As I said previously, it's unfortunate he confused the Peabody and Polk awards, but there's no indication in any of this that he was trying to inflate the prestige of the award or take personal credit for it. I would also point out that Polk's first name was also George, so we have the George Peabody award and the George Polk award. Unless one is predisposed toward believing there's some sinister objective here, I can't see how anyone can read more into this than a simple mistake on O'Reilly's part. It hardly seems justification for being pictured on the cover of a book under that "...Lying Liars..." title. It's particularly unseemly when you read in the Washington Post article that O'Reilly himself told Franken he had been confused about the name of the award.

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

Scott and Jay: The are plenty of justifications for Fox News in particular being singled out by Franken, both in title and content. Yes, the Peabody/Polk thing is being blown out of proportion, but O'Reilly and the rest of the gang over at Faux News are lying. For instance, the "Fair and Balanced" that they tout is anything but. Want a couple examples? Probably not, but here they are anyway.

1) They claim that they're a welcome change from the "liberal media", which is anything but. Even centrist Clinton liberals willl tell you that "leftist" media such as CNN, the NY Times(!) and such are more right of center than they would like. I dare anyone to name a major network news outlet that has attacked Bush with the fury that Fox News "journalists" have attacked (and still attack) Clinton.
2) They have only one supposedly lefty commentator, and that's quite (pardon the pun) a liberal interpretation.
3) They're the only network who fought and won the right to not tell the truth while reporting.
4) Using loopholes in the New York judicial system, they issue a libelous suit based on flimsy trademark laws, personally attacking an individual under the guise of defending their property.
5) O'Reilly claims he runs a "No-Spin Zone", but he uses it as personal pulpit and an excuse to abuse those who disagree with him.

Perhaps it is juvenile name-calling on Franken's part, but the language that Fox News used was no better. It definitely gave Franken more ammo for his book. Of course, they seemed to have hurt their cause more than help it, publicity-wise.

 

[Patrick_S]

That said, I think he has a point that it's pretty sad that Franken puts him on the cover of his book under that "... Lying Liars..." title, and the best Franken can come up with is that O'Reilly confused the Polk Award with the Peabody Award.

I have not read the book yet, are you certain that the award misrepresentation is the only item covered concerning O'Rielly?

Jay as far as it being wrong to mention the award I'm not certain any amount of explaining will clarify the situation for you but here goes.

Bill's journalistic credentials, integrity, whatever, were obviously being called into question because of his previous work on shows like Inside Edition. So in defense he puts out there that the show is a quality award winning show. Yes the part about it being an award winning show is true but more importantly it's also true that it wasn't an award winning show when he was involved. As I have already written it could just as easily be stated that the show's quality improved drastically once they got rid of the weaker elements. (i.e. O'Rielly)

If he wanted to defend his involvement with the show he simple should have stated that he was proud of his work and he thinks they did some quality work while he was involved. Mentioning the award as proof was a mistruth because the awards were won after he was not involved.

His use of the award was clearly a SPIN, the type of spin that he himself would use against a guest of his show.

The fact that he himself is unable or unwilling to recognize and admit the spin is just pathetic.

 

[D. Scott MacDonald]

Jesse, I was only weighing in my take of the Peabody/Polk fiasco. Some people hare have made it out to be a really big deal, but I just don't see it. I was not in any way trying to otherwise defend Bill or Fox (as I said before, I'm not a big fan).

 

[Michael Reuben]

I have been trying to find out the status of the case, but so far no luck.

There had been a hearing scheduled for the morning of Friday, August 15, but I doubt that happened. I don't think the courthouses got power until the afternoon, and I'm pretty sure they never opened for business that day.

M.

 

[Jay Heyl]

Mentioning the award as proof was a mistruth because the awards were won after he was not involved.

I suggest this interpretation of O'Reilly's comments is at least as much "spin" as you apparently assign to his mention of the award. He chose to interpret the award as reflecting on the quality of the show as a whole, both before and after the time of the award. You choose to interpret the award as having no bearing whatsoever on the quality of the program at any time prior to the award.

If Larry Flynt sold "Hustler" magazine to someone else and a few issues after the sale they published a top-notch investigative report showing clear evidence of corruption at a major charity organization, do you really think that report would even be considered for a serious journalism award? If "Inside Edition" was a steaming pile when O'Reilly was associated with it, no segment from the show would be given serious consideration for any journalism award less than twelve months after he left. You may certainly choose to disagree, but I think the winning of the Polk Award reflects positively on the show for the segment that won and for the whole of the show for some significant time prior to the award.

 

[Patrick Larkin]

I do have to say Colmes was not much of a match for Hannity, though that was as much to do with personal style as it was political leanings.

Isn't this an incredibly obvious maeuver by Fox? Their only liberal voice is teamed with an extremely conservative loudmouth - and the liberal voice they choose comes off as a meek Fox News sycophant. Pleeease...Alan Colmes? Now THAT's Fair and Balanced(TM).

[The rest self edited on second thought]

 

[Jay Heyl]

and this is evident by all the news networks jumping on the "patriotism" bandwagon - bandying about the "protesters as traitors" stories through the whole war.

I can see where someone who wasn't paying close attention might not notice the leanings of CNN and MSNBC. You'd have to be dead not to notice the leanings of the New York Times, at least when Howell Raines was at the helm.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

To get back to the trademark (and I'm surprised Damin Toell hasn't weighed in yet), you'll note that the actual registration (available to see at www.uspto.gov) specifies that it is in connection with "goods and services" namely entertainment services in the form of news programs. A book and a news program are not the same thing (indeed, one is a good and one is a service, and they're in completely different registration classes). While there is a concept that allows you to protect a wider sphere than your actual registration, that's a pretty big gap.

Second, you can't generally get a federal trademark registration for marks that are merely descriptive. So somewhere in the USPTO file for this registration should be an explanation from Fox as to why this is not merely a descriptive mark. That is to say, there should be something in Fox's own words to demonstrate that "Fair & Balanced" (the registration is for the ampersand version, not the "and" written out, but the difference is unimportant legally) is in effect fanciful as applied to their news programs. Now that should be entertaining. For a fee, the TM files are available for anyone to obtain a copy. Why isn't Drudge on this? Oh, right

Third, there has to be a likelihood of confusion of source such that an average purchaser, seeing Franken's book, would see the statement "A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right" on the cover and think, "Oh, it says 'fair and balanced,' so this must be a publication of Fox News." Not bloody likely, I'd say. I'd like to see the proof of this element of the claim.

 

[Paul_Medenwaldt]

To throw another analogy in this discussion. What if Al Franken were to have used the phrase "Can You Here Me Now?" in the title of his book?

This phrase has been repeated over the last year in Verizon Wireless commercials. Has Verizon Wireless copy righted this phrase in any way? Would Verizon have the same legal rights as Foxnews does in bringing a lawsuit against Franken or any other establishment that may use that phrase?

Paul