Blogs everywhere are adding the phrase "Fair and Balanced" to their pages to illustrate to Fox News that they don't own the phrase even if they think they do.
If you aren't up on this little non-issue, Fox is suing Al Franken for using the phrase (in a purely satirical manner) in the title of his new book.
The thing that I find suspicious about this whole tempest is the fact that Fox could hardly come up with a better way to ensure that Franken's book will sell like hotcakes than to demonize their big ol' self by going after his little writerly person. And I don't think they're so stupid that they don't realize this.
I guess since they're suing him, they're hoping this will mean he'll have the bucks to pay the big settlement they think they'll get, but still, if they'd just kept quiet the book wouldn't have anything like the visibility it now does and hence their supposed trademark would have sustained hardly any damage.
Posted by jeffy at August 18, 2003 09:12 PM