|
This site
made manifest by
dadaIMC software
|
|
Comment on this article |
View comments |
Email this Article
|
|
News :: Media |
|
Fired Fox reporters want to deny WDAF renewal license |
Current rating: 0 |
by Kurt Kiebler
Email: kkiebler (nospam) andeslibre.zzn.com (verified) |
05 Jan 2005
|
|
|
Former Fox Reporters Challenge Network over rBGH Scandal
JOURNALISTS CHALLENGE LICENSE OF FOX TV IN TAMPA ON EVIDENCE OF FALSE AND DISTORTED NEWS REPORTS
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.
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 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:
JANE AKRE jakre (at) bellsouth.net
STEVE WILSON wilson (at) citicom.com |
This work is in the public domain |
Comments
|
Re: Fired Fox reporters want to deny WDAF renewal license |
by Tom Klammer
fairtrader2002 (nospam) aol.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
05 Jan 2005
|
|
anybody have any specifics on the WDAF part of the story? |
|
Re: Fired Fox reporters want to deny WDAF renewal license |
by Kurt Kiebler
kkiebler (nospam) andeslibre.zzn.com (verified) |
Current rating: 0
06 Jan 2005
|
Hi Kurt-
Actually the Petition to Deny is directed at one station, WTVT in
Tampa Florida. We are not residents of Kansas city and therefore not
in the viewing area of those public airwaves, in other words, we have
no standing there so could not challenge that license.
The reason we mentioned WDAF was because it goes to character of
the licensee. Both stations are owned and operated by Fox.
We have included a declaration from a former reporter that his report on
Dursban, made by Dow Chemical, was turned over to the chemical
company to be edited, before it airs. That is reprehensible and goes to
the licensee putting its own interest before the public---which
technically owns the airwaves.
Stay well-
jane akre |
|
Re: Fired Fox reporters want to deny WDAF renewal license |
by D. Burbeck
dburbeck (nospam) 650dialup.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
09 Jan 2005
|
Dear Ms. Akre and Mr. Wilson,
You are remarkable human beings and entitled to every award in the journalism world. Thank you for not "taking it", and standing up for the people of this country, we love you immensely for it.
I will be watching for you....since you are wathcing out for us.
Sincere thanks for putting up with the past several years of misery this must have been for you both.
Bless you |
|
Fox News Network < Violating the Public Trust II |
by Tom Klammer
73740.3255 (nospam) compuserve.com (verified) |
Current rating: 0
09 Jan 2005
|
from: http://alexconstantine.50megs.com/the_fox_news2.html
One of Akre and Wilson's witnesses was Brian Karem, a reporter who
joined Fox TV affiliate WDAF in 1997. At the time, WDAF praised Karem,
saying that his "experience and drive will bring investigative reporting to
a new level in Kansas City." But the next year, when Karem completed a
report on the potential dangers of the pesticide Dursban, he met with
resistance. Karem says, "I was told, 'You don't want to do this type of
story. It's too difficult to do. Don't you want to be a team player?' "
When Dow Chemical Company, which makes Dursban, turned down Karem's requests
for an interview, WDAF sent a copy of Karem's tape to Dow, inviting the
company to produce a rebuttal. When WDAF received the Dow tape, they cut out
a personal attack on Karem and added the rebuttal at the end of Karem's
Dursban report, which ran in February 1998. Karem calls this tantamount to
suppressing the truth.
After that, Karem says, "I was told to do more fast-breaking stuff,
like whether people are getting enough cheese on their pizza." He knew that
other networks were cutting back on investigative reporting. But he was so
traumatized by the experience that he asked Fox to buy out his contract, and
he left WDAF in late 1998.
Today, Akre and Wilson are unemployed, working on their appeal and
preparing a complaint for the FCC. Karem is a contributor to People and
Playboy, and author of the recent book Spin Control. David Boylan runs KTTV
in Los Angeles, Fox TV's second-largest station. In 1999, Europe and Canada
banned BGH. In 2000, the FDA banned Dursban. People who get their news from
Fox TV probably still think these products are perfectly safe. |
|
|
