4 ms·

Corporate campaign contributions: legal strategy

7 points by grellas 17y ago

rbanffy 17y ago
"winningest attorney"?! Seriously? But it's still interesting issue. While I agree that Freedom of expression is more important than preventing parties interested in the outcome of an election from creating publicity pieces that masquerade as documentaries, maybe we should also consider scrutinizing such expressions closely as to whether or not they should qualify as campaign donations or slander. Such scrutiny should come fast, because the damage done cannot be easily reversed. OTOH, group A interested in electing candidate B could create a "docuslander" campaign against B in order to get candidate C punished. It's a delicate and interesting issue.
- anamax 17y ago
  > maybe we should also consider scrutinizing such expressions closely as to whether or not they should qualify as campaign donations or slander. How about not? Or, how about we subject "news reports" to exactly the same scrutiny? And, speaking of slander, how about campaigns themselves? Almost every media outlet in the US is a corporation. It's absurd to argue that GE (owner of NBC) should have unfettered political speech yet Home Depot should not. You remember GE - they're the folks lobbying for govt mandates for products that they make. Remember that the next time you watch NBC.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    I am perfectly fine with political ads that look like political ads. I am not perfectly fine with political ads that pretend to be impartial depictions of reality. I can't watch NBC because my cable-TV doesn't carry it (I live in Brazil - for English news, I have BBC, CNN, Bloomberg and - gulp - Fox News). Is it really that bad?
    - anamax 17y ago
      > I am not perfectly fine with political ads that pretend to be impartial depictions of reality. Let me guess - you think that documentaries are typically "reality". They're not. If you think that news is reality, you've never seen coverage for something that you experienced personally. That said, there is no objective line between political speech and truth. And, more to the point, political speech is supposedly what the first amendment protects. (In practice, the protections for porn are stronger but even there the excuse is protecting political speech.)
      - rbanffy 17y ago
        There is a reasonable expectation that documentaries should be unbiased depictions of whatever they happen to be about. When you set out to make a documentary it's expected from you not to misrepresent what you know about the subject matter. I don't expect it to happen 100% of the time, but that's what separates good journalism from Fox News (or NBC, according to you). I take all journalism with a grain of salt, but I also expect journalists to at least try to properly inform their audience. You know the saying: with great power comes great responsibility.
        anamax 17y ago
        > There is a reasonable expectation that documentaries should be unbiased depictions of whatever they happen to be about. Since they're not, that expectation isn't reasonable. More important, even if they're not distorting what they're showing, they're choosing what to show, and that distorts. > I also expect journalists to at least try to properly inform their audience. Good for you. However, that's not how they actually behave. And no, this is not specific to Fox or NBC. It's universal. Every source has a point of view. > You know the saying: with great power comes great responsibility. Nice saying, but it's a hope, one that isn't actually true. Great power does not imply anything more than great power. It doesn't, for example, imply truthfulness.
grellas 17y ago
This is neither here nor there but the article as I had posted it was recast from its original title ("Risky Strategy Leads to Big Court Win," which I had used) to one that is actually inaccurate (since the legal case involved what might be called "issues advocacy" and not "corporate campaign contributions"). Just clarifying for anyone interested. By the way, the interest of this piece lies not so much in its description of the underlying legal case as it does in the human elements associated with it - its theme might be summarized as "how does a government attorney so overplay his hand - by vehemently asserting at oral argument that the law would render illegal virtually all forms of traditional advocacy that an entity might use in this context, e.g., books, pamphlets - that it transforms a little-known case that should have been decided on narrow issues into a major decision that explodes in the government's face?" That is the real drama of what happened here and it is interesting to observe this as a matter of legal strategy regardless of what one thinks of the decision in the case itself.

7 points by grellas 17y ago

"winningest attorney"?! Seriously? But it's still interesting issue. While I agree that Freedom of expression is more important than preventing parties interested in the outcome of an election from creating publicity pieces that masquerade as documentaries, maybe we should also consider scrutinizing such expressions closely as to whether or not they should qualify as campaign donations or slander. Such scrutiny should come fast, because the damage done cannot be easily reversed. OTOH, group A interested in electing candidate B could create a "docuslander" campaign against B in order to get candidate C punished. It's a delicate and interesting issue.

anamax 17y ago
> maybe we should also consider scrutinizing such expressions closely as to whether or not they should qualify as campaign donations or slander. How about not? Or, how about we subject "news reports" to exactly the same scrutiny? And, speaking of slander, how about campaigns themselves? Almost every media outlet in the US is a corporation. It's absurd to argue that GE (owner of NBC) should have unfettered political speech yet Home Depot should not. You remember GE - they're the folks lobbying for govt mandates for products that they make. Remember that the next time you watch NBC.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  I am perfectly fine with political ads that look like political ads. I am not perfectly fine with political ads that pretend to be impartial depictions of reality. I can't watch NBC because my cable-TV doesn't carry it (I live in Brazil - for English news, I have BBC, CNN, Bloomberg and - gulp - Fox News). Is it really that bad?
  - anamax 17y ago
    > I am not perfectly fine with political ads that pretend to be impartial depictions of reality. Let me guess - you think that documentaries are typically "reality". They're not. If you think that news is reality, you've never seen coverage for something that you experienced personally. That said, there is no objective line between political speech and truth. And, more to the point, political speech is supposedly what the first amendment protects. (In practice, the protections for porn are stronger but even there the excuse is protecting political speech.)
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      There is a reasonable expectation that documentaries should be unbiased depictions of whatever they happen to be about. When you set out to make a documentary it's expected from you not to misrepresent what you know about the subject matter. I don't expect it to happen 100% of the time, but that's what separates good journalism from Fox News (or NBC, according to you). I take all journalism with a grain of salt, but I also expect journalists to at least try to properly inform their audience. You know the saying: with great power comes great responsibility.
      - anamax 17y ago
        > There is a reasonable expectation that documentaries should be unbiased depictions of whatever they happen to be about. Since they're not, that expectation isn't reasonable. More important, even if they're not distorting what they're showing, they're choosing what to show, and that distorts. > I also expect journalists to at least try to properly inform their audience. Good for you. However, that's not how they actually behave. And no, this is not specific to Fox or NBC. It's universal. Every source has a point of view. > You know the saying: with great power comes great responsibility. Nice saying, but it's a hope, one that isn't actually true. Great power does not imply anything more than great power. It doesn't, for example, imply truthfulness.

grellas 17y ago

This is neither here nor there but the article as I had posted it was recast from its original title ("Risky Strategy Leads to Big Court Win," which I had used) to one that is actually inaccurate (since the legal case involved what might be called "issues advocacy" and not "corporate campaign contributions"). Just clarifying for anyone interested. By the way, the interest of this piece lies not so much in its description of the underlying legal case as it does in the human elements associated with it - its theme might be summarized as "how does a government attorney so overplay his hand - by vehemently asserting at oral argument that the law would render illegal virtually all forms of traditional advocacy that an entity might use in this context, e.g., books, pamphlets - that it transforms a little-known case that should have been decided on narrow issues into a major decision that explodes in the government's face?" That is the real drama of what happened here and it is interesting to observe this as a matter of legal strategy regardless of what one thinks of the decision in the case itself.