January 06, 2005
Reporters fight Fox News lies
A court recently ruled that Fox News has every right to air lies and distortions - it’s not technically illegal. As a result of this ruling, the two Tampa reporters who have been fighting Fox for years over their unjust firing have been ordered to pay millions in Fox legal fees.
Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, the two former FOX Television (WTVT-13) journalists have filed appeals of a ruling that they must pay the legal costs and fees the broadcaster incurred defending itself in a landmark whistleblower case the reporters filed in 1998. The journalists estimate FOX spent than a million dollars on its defense.The ruling assessing the fees came on the heels of a ruling overturned a August 2000 jury verdict and $425,000 award to FOX investigative reporter Jane Akre. Although jurors concluded she was pressured by FOX lawyers and managers to broadcast what the jury agreed was "a false, distorted or slanted story" and was fired for threatening to blow the whistle, the jury decision was reversed on a legal technicality when a higher court agreed with FOX that it is technically not against any law, rule or regulation
In setting the jury verdict aside, the appeals court ruled that in order to be protected by Florida’s Whistleblower Act, the alleged misconduct must violate a written law. The court said the FCC’s prohibition against news distortion is merely a policy.
Well, it’s license renewal time for WTVT in Tampa, and every citizen (pdf) has a right to file a comment with the FCC, including Steve and Jane.
Two TV journalists have challenged the broadcast license renewal of WTVT Fox-13 asserting it deliberately broadcast false and distorted news reports.Reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson filed the petition Monday against the Tampa station, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's Fox Television conglomerate.
The 98-page petition to deny the station's pending license renewal presents the Federal Communications Commission with 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 describe as a year-long experience working at the station where they resisted their managers who, they allege, 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 nationally.
The petition also charges WTVT violated federal rules about keeping viewer complaints and comments on file. The reporters say no communication regarding the dispute over the hormone story was found in the files even though there were several examples of letters that should have been there, they said.
"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," said Akre in a release.
Unfortunately, the current chairman of the FCC is on record as saying that he has “no idea” (pdf file) what the public interest is, so it might be a little hard to make this charge stick, but it’s good to see someone fighting the evil empire.
Links for this post liberally stolen from Seeing The Forest - a Weblog of Politics
Posted by Norwood at January 6, 2005 09:19 AM