[IMC-US] Possible Story Idea: Fired reporters challenge Fox TV license

[sheri at speakeasy.org]

-----Original Message-----
From: dorindamoreno [mailto:dorindamoreno at comcast.net]
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 02:45 PM
To: Activist_List at yahoogroups.com, 'Institute for Public Accuracy', 
'Media Monitors Network (MMN)', 'NewCal Media', 'Progressive Review', 'Tolerance.org', 
warcry at indymedia.org, 'Steve Wilson'
Subject: Fired reporters challenge Fox TV license



> Fired reporters challenge Fox TV license
>
> Steve Wilson and Jane Akre charge Fox with false and distorted news 
> reports.
>
> Dateline: Sunday, January 16, 2005
>
> by Steve Wilson
>
> TAMPA (January 3, 2005) For what is believed to be the first time 
> ever, two television journalists have challenged the broadcast license 
> of a station on grounds it deliberately broadcast false and distorted 
> news reports.
>
> Veteran reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson filed the petition Monday 
> against WTVT Fox-13, in Tampa, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's Fox 
> Television empire.
>
> The formal Petition To Deny the station's pending license renewal 
> presents the Federal Communications Commission with 98 pages of what 
> the journalists say is "clear and convincing support for the claim 
> that the licensee is not operating in the public interest and lacks 
> the good character to do so."
>
> The challenge stems from what the reporters say was a year-long 
> experience inside the station, where they resisted Fox managers who 
> repeatedly ordered them to distort a series of news reports about the 
> secret use of an artificial hormone injected in dairy cattle 
> throughout Florida and beyond.
>
> The claim also cites another case of alleged deliberate distortion at 
> the Fox-owned television station in Kansas City, WDAF Fox-4.
>
> 	  	
>
> "No broadcaster should be allowed to put its own financial interests 
> ahead of the public interest."
>
> The journalists also charge that WTVT has violated federal rules with 
> regard to keeping on file viewer complaints and comments. The 
> reporters say not one communication regarding the dispute over the 
> hormone story was found in the files even though there were several 
> examples of letters, which should have been there.
>
> "There are no greater supporters of the First Amendment than Steve and 
> I," Akre said. "But the First Amendment is certainly not a license to 
> lie and no broadcaster should be allowed to put its own financial 
> interests ahead of the public interest. The public interest is by law 
> the primary obligation of every broadcaster who uses our public 
> airwaves to make their corporate fortune, especially when broadcasting 
> the news."
>
> "The FCC itself has clearly said 'rigging or slanting the news is a 
> most heinous act against the public interest and indeed, there is no 
> act more harmful to the public's ability to handle its affairs,' and 
> who can disagree?" Wilson added.
>
> The reporters charge station executives demanded the reports be 
> falsified and slanted to avoid a threatened lawsuit by the hormone 
> maker Monsanto, as well as potential loss of advertising from dairymen 
> and others who objected to the reports.
>
> Though Fox officials never pointed to a single inaccuracy in the 
> proposed broadcasts, they nonetheless fired the two after the 
> reporters refused to yield to management threats of dismissal. The two 
> also refused what they characterized as a six-figure offer of 
> hush-money from station managers who wanted them to leave and forever 
> keep quiet about the issue.
>
> In 1998, the two filed a civil court lawsuit seeking employee 
> protections under the state Whistleblower Act that resulted in a 
> $425,000 jury award to Akre. That verdict was then overturned in 2003 
> when an appeals court accepted Fox's defense that since it is not 
> technically against any law, rule, or regulation for a broadcaster to 
> distort the news, the journalists were never entitled to employee 
> protections as whistleblowers in the first place.
>
> Although Fox has always denied it ever ordered deliberate distortions, 
> the jury found the reports at the heart of the dispute were "false, 
> distorted, or slanted." While the appellate court ruling that reversed 
> the jury called the journalists' suit "without merit from its 
> inception," that finding was based solely upon the court's finding on 
> the threshold issue that the Whistleblower law did not apply in this 
> particular case. No court has ever disputed the jury's conclusions 
> about the news reports themselves.
>
> "The public expects the FCC to exercise its authority on complaints of 
> indecency on the public airwaves, and it has in cases like Janet 
> Jackson and here locally with Bubba The Love Sponge. Certainly no less 
> important is the public's expectation that the airwaves they own will 
> not be used to lie and mislead them on issues of public importance," 
> Wilson said.
>
> "Steve and I are gratified that six disinterested people who spent 
> more than a month reviewing the facts ultimately agreed the story Fox 
> demanded was, as the jurors determined, 'false, distorted or slanted.'
>
> "As we said in our Petition, we are not seeking to retry our 
> whistleblower case at the FCC. We are doing what we said all along 
> that we have a duty to do: bring the facts of Fox's misconduct to the 
> attention of a federal regulatory agency that long ago promised it 
> would act to protect the public interest against broadcasters who 
> twist the truth in news reports," she said.
>
> "Reporters seldom if ever speak out against the news organization that 
> employs them. I'm proof that doing so is not the best path to career 
> advancement – but what happened here was too egregious for any honest 
> journalist to ignore," Akre said.
>
> "And now, with the strongest, clearest, and best-documented case of 
> news distortion ever presented to the FCC by newsroom insiders, we 
> call upon the Commissioners to exercise their authority to assure the 
> public is being well-served and not misled," Wilson said.
>
> The petition seeks a full and thorough investigation by the FCC 
> followed by public hearings on the matter before any determination is 
> made to renew WTVT's license to operate the station for the next eight 
> years.
>
> FOR MORE INFORMATION OR A COPY OF THE PETITION, CONTACT:
> Steve Wilson at his email Steve Wilson 
> <mailto:%3Cwilson at citicom.com%3E> or Jane Akre at the address below.
>
> -- 
>
> It is all clear to me now…clear as mud   !!!
>

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