It seems the some­what lib­eral view held by the more par­ti­san side of the news/infotainment/media regard­ing ‘free speech’ is going to be tested. Free speech does not guar­an­tee the right to ‘hate speech’ par­tic­u­larly with the intent to do harm or the right to mis­in­form and now the White House is fight­ing back against Fox News.

the con­flict had been mostly a one-sided affair, with Fox News hosts pro­mot­ing tax day “tea par­ties” that focused protest on the new pres­i­dent, and more recently bring­ing down the pres­i­den­tial adviser Van Jones through rugged cov­er­age that caught the admin­is­tra­tion, and other news orga­ni­za­tions, off guard. Dur­ing the health care debate, Fox News has put a mega­phone to oppo­nents, some of whom have advanced far-fetched the­o­ries about the impact of reform. And even far­ther out on the edge, the network’s most vis­i­ble star of the moment, Glenn Beck, has said the pres­i­dent has “a deep-seated hatred for white people.”

Admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials seemed to have decided that they had had enough.

“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an oppo­nent,” Anita Dunn, the White House com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor, said in an inter­view with The New York Times. “As they are under­tak­ing a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pre­tend that this is the way that legit­i­mate news orga­ni­za­tions behave.”

About time the White House called out Fox News’ legit­i­macy as a news orga­ni­za­tion although it should be noticed since the net­work has been attack­ing Obama rat­ings have increased 20%. Appar­ently, irre­spon­si­ble jour­nal­ism sells.

Speak­ing of irre­spon­si­ble, Rush Lim­baugh is also under fire by Al Sharpton

This feud started after the recent announce­ment that Lim­baugh was a part of a group of investors inter­ested in buy­ing the NFL’s St. Louis Rams. Lim­baugh was dropped from the group after an ensu­ing firestorm in which some play­ers, team own­ers and NFL hon­chos said they were against Lim­baugh, whom some accused of mak­ing racially insen­si­tive statements.

Sharp­ton, how­ever, was along for the ride. The Harlem agi­ta­tor took advan­tage of the news to demand that Lim­baugh drop his mem­ber­ship to the all-white Ever­glades Club in Palm Beach.

Con­tro­versy boosts rat­ings and clearly many of these provo­ca­teurs will aban­don jour­nal­is­tic ethics and shame­lessly mis­lead their read­ers, view­ers and lis­ten­ers for adver­tis­ing money. Tak­ing them on in court may be the only way to apply the brakes to the ‘hate speech’ ped­dlers of free speech. On the other hand, why give them any cre­dence at all? Why engage them as if they are legit­i­mate media when they clearly are not?

Per­haps it is best to ignore them, just like our local provo­ca­teurs and Lim­baugh wanna be’s, and just step over them like a pile of dog poop on the side­walk and con­tinue on your way. Step­ping in it is just plain icky.

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