Hmmm, what might the digital version of the postal frank look like?
How about the way the FCC polices foul language and nudity on broadcasts? Which is worse, hearing the excited utterance of an expletive or the partial bearing of a breast, or false and misleading reporting that might alter the course of a national election?
Profanity and nudity are factual questions: "did he/she say/show it?" There's not really room for interpretation there. "False or misleading reporting" is very much a matter of opinion--in fact, it's entirely possible to report only statements that are perfectly truthful and still leave a false impression...and that's before you even get into the inherent bias in story selection itself.
A good intellectual exercise: for any standard you propose, imagine the judging to be in the hands of your opposition. Do you want a leftist judge (or, if it's the FCC, an administrative law judge, who has even more flexibility and less accountability than an Article III judge) deciding on the truthfulness of a story exposing a fraud in climate study, given that the consensus is that AGW is real, and thus exposing a single fraudulent scientist--though it may be entirely truthful and accurate to do so--may paint a "misleading picture" of the state of the science in general?
There's a very good reason the Supreme Court has held that "the best remedy for bad speech is more speech."
Even when more speech is a complete and utter lie? In your own post you're perpetuating an untruth. "The consensus is that AGW is real" is utilized by partisan political operatives and "enterprising" people and entities to make obscene profits, frequently off the backs of taxpayers. By exposing one of the most virulent AGW proponents as a fraud, it puts a significant dent in their enterprise.
Smart people will admit GACC is real, while categorically rejecting that it's significant enough to spend TRILLIONS of dollars in other people's money, until science proves beyond a reasonable doubt what percentage of overall GCC is anthropomorphic, and what percentage of that percentage is attributable to each country. Actual independently unverified proof, not poorly supported hypotheses using manipulated data and "peer review" from ideologically aligned supporters .
Besides, I'm not talking about researchers and pols, I'm talking about media broadcasters falsely holding themselves out as journalism while spreading lies, untruths and innuendo as "fact".
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