While an increasing number of Americans suspect mainstream news
organizations sometimes 'twist' the news, two veteran investigative
journalists say they are ready to prove in court how Fox Television
managers and lawyers at WTVT Fox 13 in Tampa ordered them to deliberately
distort news reports and then fired them for resisting those directives.
The landmark whistleblower lawsuit is believed to be the first time any
journalist has ever filed a claim against his own news organization and
offered evidence of behind-the-scenes manipulation of the news.
With the trial starting in mid-July, few Americans are even aware of this
landmark confrontation. Reporters Jane Akre (pronounced A'-cree) and Steve
Wilson say they will show exactly how Fox hired them and advertised their
reputations for hard-hitting investigations but then folded and pressured
them to slant a story in favor of an advertiser who threatened "dire
consequences" if their reports were broadcast.
CBS journalist Walter Cronkite and public interest advocate Ralph Nader are
both on the plaintiffs' witness list, despite efforts by Fox attorneys who
desperately sought to block their testimony.
The trial will pit the two fired journalists, with Wilson representing
himself for more than two years in an effort to save money on legal fees
and Akre represented by a small Tampa firm, against the powerful Washington
law firm of Williams & Connolly, the same lawyers who represent President
Bill Clinton personally.
To get their day in court, the plaintiffs have sold their home, spent their
life savings battling the media giant, and say they have been branded as
media traitors never likely to get another good job in the business again.
To the amazement of most legal observers, the reporters paved their way to
court by defeating three Fox motions to summarily dismiss the case without
a trial. Akre's legal team led by John Chamblee and Tom Johnson engineered
those victories.
At the heart of the dispute is a series of reports produced by Akre and
Wilson revealing the widespread and virtually secret use of a synthetic
hormone being injected into dairy cows throughout Florida and much of the
U.S. The hormone causes cows to produce more milk.
These investigative reports by the two journalists demonstrate that use of
the synthetic hormone has altered what once was called nature's most nearly
perfect food, without the consent or approval of milk drinkers and those
that serve it daily to children. Fox abruptly pulled the report from its
schedule early in 1997 at the objection of Monsanto.
The stories would have also disclosed for the first time that leading
grocers now admit they quietly broke their 1994 promises not to buy milk
from hormone-injected cows until the practice achieved widespread
acceptance. Surveys have shown that the vast majority of consumers do not
want artificial hormones in their milk and would avoid such milk if it were
labeled. No dairy anywhere is known to label its milk as coming from cows
injected with artificial hormones.
Although legal in America, the artificial bovine growth hormone (rBGH)
has been banned in Canada, throughout Europe, and elsewhere due in large
part to concern about health risks for milk drinkers. One of the chief
concerns is that while the growth hormones do cause the cows to produce
more milk, the milk is changed in a way that could promote breast, colon
and prostate cancer.
"In wake of the two written threats from Monsanto to Fox News chief Roger
Ailes, we were asked to put Fox's interest in its own bottom line ahead of
the public interest," said plaintiff Steve Wilson. Monsanto is the
multi-national chemical company that makes the genetically engineered
hormone.
"When the president of Fox Television Stations saw those threats, that
executive who controls more television stations than anyone in America
simply ordered his lawyers to 'take no risks' with the story." Wilson said.
The executive's directive has been confirmed in sworn testimony from two
Fox attorneys in the written notes of one them.
"And we have also discovered, in another handwritten note from one of the
broadcaster's attorneys, that if they tried to kill the story and word
leaked out, it would be a major PR problem for Fox'" said co-plaintiff
Akre. "So they decided to eliminate their risk by pressuring us to placate
Monsanto and essentially lie to the public. No decent journalist can ever
do that."
The reporters will testify that Fox managers first threatened to fire them
for insubordination, then offered them a six-figure deal to entice them to
go along. When the pair refused, they say they were strung along for
months re-writing the story 83 times in an effort to get it on the air
before being suspended, locked out, and ultimately fired by Fox for what
the broadcasting company claimed was "no cause."
The reporters will not be able to tell the jury about a second deal whereby
Fox offered to pay each reporter a whole year's salary for no-show jobs as
"news consultants" in exchange for their leaving quietly and never
disclosing to anyone what they learned regarding the milk or the quality of
Fox journalism.
The trial court ruled that the second six-figure deal was actually made to
try and avoid a lawsuit. To encourage out-of-court settlements, such
offers cannot be admitted into evidence when disputes cannot be settled
without a trial.
The issue has drawn world-wide attention as a result of a website the
journalists posted the day their lawsuit was filed. The reporters, who
happen to be married to each other, have also traveled far and wide to
accept invitations to speak about genetically engineered milk and their
experiences with Fox. They have vowed not to personally benefit from their
efforts to publicize the story Fox refused to tell.
Many of the documents from the suit are posted on the World Wide Web
at http://www.foxBGHsuit.com |
