{"id":508,"date":"2003-08-12T10:46:16","date_gmt":"2003-08-12T15:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/508.html"},"modified":"2003-08-12T10:46:16","modified_gmt":"2003-08-12T15:46:16","slug":"fox-news-sues-al-franken-over-use-of-fair-and-balanced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/fox-news-sues-al-franken-over-use-of-fair-and-balanced\/","title":{"rendered":"Fox News sues Al Franken over use of ‘fair and balanced’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comedian Al Franken, widely known for his bestseller, “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot<\/a>,” has a new book coming out next month with an equally restrained title: “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Fox News Channel, the conservative TV network and a frequent target of Franken’s scorn, has decided to unintentionally help Franken with the biggest favor in recent publishing history — they’ve decided to sue him for trademark infringement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Apparently, Fox News claims to have registered the phrase “fair and balanced” in 1998. The network, therefore, is suing Franken for using the phrase in the title of his forthcoming book.<\/p>\n

In its federal lawsuit, Fox News refers to Franken as an “unstable” commentator who is “not a well-respected voice in American politics.” The network also criticizes Franken for being “neither a journalist nor a television news personality.” (We pause now for a hypocrisy alert. Fox News — which wouldn’t know journalism if it kicked them in the teeth — is criticizing Franken for not being a journalist.)<\/p>\n

But that’s not the funny part. Fox News’ suit charges that Franken’s use of the phrase “fair and balanced” is “likely to cause confusion among the public about whether Fox News has authorized or endorsed the book and about whether Franken is affiliated with FNC.”<\/p>\n

I’m thrilled they’re making this argument. The network’s lawyers will try to convince a federal judge that the book-buying public will see a book titled “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them” and naturally conclude that Fox News Channel has authorized and endorsed the book. Classic.
\n
\nThis lawsuit is almost too stupid for description, but it may do the impossible: make Fox News’ reputation even worse. Putting aside for a moment that the network has never been “fair” nor “balanced,” what makes Fox News think they can trademark such a common three word phrase? This suit is going nowhere fast.<\/p>\n

Fox News also claims in its suit that Franken’s “intent is clear — to exploit Fox News’ trademark, confuse the public as to the origins of the book and, accordingly, boost sales of the book.”<\/p>\n

Ironically, Fox News is the one boosting sales of the book. I’ve been checking Amazon intermittently this morning and “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them” has been climbing the sales rankings for the last several hours.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, you can pre-order Franken’s soon-to-be bestseller by following the link available through “Carpetbagger Recommends<\/a>.” (I know, I know, shameless commercialism. I don’t want to hear it.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Comedian Al Franken, widely known for his bestseller, “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot,” has a new book coming out next month with an equally restrained title: “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.” Fox News Channel, the conservative TV network and a frequent target […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}