Forum: F-35 Lightning II

Today Canada's Globe and Mail news paper released another wonderful article on the F-35 titled:

Quote:

Initial F-35 jets could be unable to track troops, talk to older planes

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/initial-f-35-jets-could-be-unable-to-track-troops-talk-to-older-planes/article2245111/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2245111

In my opinion the Globe and Mails reporting style is starting to take a turn for the worse to the point where it is almost tabloid journalism. For instance they could have just as easily written an article like this:

Quote:

"Globe and Mail journalist could grow second head, Canadians eager with anticipation!

So my question is: Should Lockheed Martin and the Canadian Department of National Defenece sue journalists and news papers who abuse the freedom of the press and mislead their readers with half truths with the intention of slandering the F-35 program, Lockheed Martin, and Canadian Department of National Defence?

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alloycowboy wrote:

So my question is: Should Lockheed Martin and the Canadian Department of National Defenece sue journalists and news papers who abuse the freedom of the press and mislead their readers with half truths with the intention of slandering the F-35 program, Lockheed Martin, and Canadian Department of National Defence?

Yea, the USAF doesn't fly Tomcats!

I think the issue is this: Brewster and Pugliese are canadian focused journalists. They have some contacts among American Journalists, but are not familiar with US in general. you see the same issue with Mark from Ottawa's posting here. So alot of their understanding of these issues are based on limited understanding of the issue. Alot of them don't understand how out extreme Bill Sweetman, or Winslow Wheeler are, yet they take them as authoritative voices. There only other source is the Department of National Defence in Canada, either through the official responses (a system that is broken) or Access to Information Act requests. Its really imprecise and it shows in reporting like this... In a way a lot of it almost is like hearsay.

I'll give an example. Last week you saw a huge flare up in Canada because Panetta had that letter to McCain and Graham about cutting the F-35. There was absolutely no nuanced in the reporting. Then it was a revelation that when Panetta spoke in Halifax that he was defending the program. You could have just read the New York Times a week before where he said that this program would be the last cut. Its really sad, because its poisoned the debate In Canada.

hb_pencil wrote:

I think the issue is this: Brewster and Pugliese are canadian focused journalists. They have some contacts among American Journalists, but are not familiar with US in general. you see the same issue with Mark from Ottawa's posting here. So alot of their understanding of these issues are based on limited understanding of the issue. Alot of them don't understand how out extreme Bill Sweetman, or Winslow Wheeler are, yet they take them as authoritative voices. There only other source is the Department of National Defence in Canada, either through the official responses (a system that is broken) or Access to Information Act requests. Its really imprecise and it shows in reporting like this... In a way a lot of it almost is like hearsay.

I'll give an example. Last week you saw a huge flare up in Canada because Panetta had that letter to McCain and Graham about cutting the F-35. There was absolutely no nuanced in the reporting. Then it was a revelation that when Panetta spoke in Halifax that he was defending the program. You could have just read the New York Times a week before where he said that this program would be the last cut. Its really sad, because its poisoned the debate In Canada.

Thanks for your explanation. Came to a same kind of conclusion. As a foreigner they are hard to follow. These journalist are living on the same continent, also neighbor of the US, would have been expected to be a lot more familiar with the US than journalists in other countries.

alloycowboy wrote:

So my question is: Should Lockheed Martin and the Canadian Department of National Defenece sue journalists and news papers who abuse the freedom of the press and mislead their readers with half truths with the intention of slandering the F-35 program, Lockheed Martin, and Canadian Department of National Defence?

A Molotov cocktail thrown into their head office would probably have more affect.

pusho - careful there... that sort of implied threat is even more illegal than libel.

As far as potential law suits against journalists go, sure, it would be a legit case to pursue if defamation claims are malicious in intent, implied to be factual (as opposed to suggesting a potential claim) and more so, if the implied claim being made as a fact, is indisputably false.

In most cases I've seen so far in the media however, the 'claims' have been more suggestive as potential outcomes and probing of possible truths and not definitive 'libel' in the sense of being claimed as factual. Also, hate to say it, but most if not all such 'claims' being reported thus far are based on official releases of information or reports, eg GAO reports and even first hand JPO/DoD press releases. And unfortunately, most of the 'claims' to date are in fact not grossly inaccurate from the facts available.

Personally, if there's one journo out there who could be 'pursued' for libel in making factual claims against various defense industry and Defense depts, it would be Alex Jones. That could be a baseline imho as far as journos making definitive unproven slanderous claims as fact.

Quote:

Should Lockheed Martin sue bad journalists?

Do they have a legal team big enough to sue most of the journalists in the world?

Quote:

pusho - careful there... that sort of implied threat is even more illegal than libel.

You mean like when they hung Bush and Cheney in effigy? Oh wait, those were leftists. That's OK then. Just freedom of speech and all. No double standards in the US media, just Canada.
Cheers

I think most of you would agree that the coverage of the F-35 in the Canadian media has been extremely slanted in the negative direction. For instance the F-35 reached two mile stones yesterday with the roll out of the first international version of the F-35 and the surpassing of the planned number of flight tests for the year. To my knowledge none of the Canadian media outlets reported these stories.

In order to have balanced coverage on a particular subject and avoid deformation the media is required to stick to provable facts and report both the good and bad with out interpretation of the facts. Has the Canadian media really done that? For instance since the Canadian Government has not signed to the contract yet to actually purchase the F-35 so isn't it a bit speculative on the medias part to assert that the F-35's won't be able to talk to ground troops? Does the Canadian media really know what type of communications equipment the Canadian Armed forces will be using in the future? Not really? So their whole line reasoning was speculative and not really back up by solid provable facts.

Just looking at the definition of "Defamation":

Defamation—also called calumny, vilification, traducement, slander (for transitory statements), and libel (for written, broadcast, or otherwise published words)—is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government, or nation a negative image. This can be also any disparaging statement made by one person about another, which is communicated or published. It is usually a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed (the claimant).[1]

Since the information on the Canadian F-35's communication systems and those of the future Canadian armed forces are unknown isn't speculating on them in a negative fashion defamation??? Just asking?

Quote:

Tories insist F-35 will talk to ground troops; small number need upgrade Murray Brewster, Nov 23, 2011

"OTTAWA - The Conservative government insists all of its new F-35 jets will arrive with the hardware needed to talk to ground troops and prevent friendly fire, but some will still need upgrades to make it work.

Associate Defence Minister Julian Fantino said the stealth jets will be ready to do whatever the government asks, when it asks.

"All of Canada's F-35s will not only be capable of operating overseas the moment we get them, but be able to communicate with aircraft and know where friendly ground units are well in advance of deployment on operations," Fantino said under questioning in the House of Commons.

While the multi-role fighter will have the hardware and be wired to track ground troops, the actual feature that powers the system is not scheduled to be installed until a major upgrade in 2019, according to U.S. military technical journals — something also alluded to in heavily censored Canadian air force documents, obtained under access to information laws.

Asked to reconcile the conflicting information, a spokesman for Fantino said in an email response that the air force would have to load the feature into the first handful of jets.

Chris McCluskey says each aircraft comes equipped with a Blue Force Tracker "capability" when it arrives in Canada, "with the exception of a small number of aircraft in which it is scheduled for installation before deployment on missions."

The technical journals and documents also discuss the expected absence of a transmission system, known as a Link 16.

McCluskey denied the F-35 will be without that capability, which allows pilots to send short text messages and data to ships, older aircraft and ground stations...."

[...]
More: http://www.globalnews.ca/Canada/tories+ ... story.html

A law suit just provides the idiots with more ammunition.

Better to call a press conference and call them out in public.

"In yesterday's article by Mr. XXXXX, he stated that YYYYYY. Now I now aviation is complex technology, but this is complety wrong, every word of it. Let me speak very, very slowly for Mr. XXXX so he can have a chance to figure it out."

Because for the most part, journalists are not all that smart. Journalism is fun at university because maths are difficult.

What is actually happening wrt the F-35 Comms.

Did the article confuse Link16 with MADL?

No way to tell due to NO sources being provided in the articles.

Political cartoon seen in B.C. paper:

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/11/25/Ca ... -Purchase/

LM might have a case, but they would have to present great deal of classified/sensitive information as evidence to win. In the meantime, those who scream the loudest will be the ones that the press listens to.