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Fox vs. the media
jackals |
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True, it's easy to dismiss
the Fox News Channel with its gale-force windbags and McCarthyesque jingoism.
But "progressive" media critics are so blinded by their loathing of
Fox, they can be just as guilty of distortion as the news organization they
despise. Two examples of critics
selling the same smear about Fox: - The leading lefty press
watchdog group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), publishes a magazine,
Extra!, which this month has an article titled "News You Can't
Trust" by veteran environmental writer Karen Charman. - Former CNN and CBS
reporter Kristina Borjesson has compiled accounts of reporters getting screwed
in a new book, Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a
Free Press. Both Charman's article and Buzzsaw
contain paeans to two TV journalists, a husband-wife team, Steve Wilson and Jane
Akre. Charman and Borjesson never provide a whiff of skepticism about Wilson and
Akre, or the couple's claims in a dispute with Fox. There are plenty of veteran,
respected journalists who know Wilson and Akre aren't the noble warriors for
truth that they claim. But enlightened progressives won't ask those who
understand the true story because they work for (cross yourself) Fox. Wilson and Akre
stake
their fame on claims that the Tampa Fox affiliate, WTVT, tried to force them to
print distorted and untrue news about a growth hormone used with cattle. The
hormone is made by Monsanto, a corporation that's justifiably almost as high in
the left's demonology as Fox. Wilson and Akre were fired
by the station for repeated acts of insubordination. They sued WTVT under a
Florida whistleblower law and immediately began a vigorous campaign of
fundraising and self-promotion. They implied impoverishment, on their website (www.foxbghsuit.com)
telling uninformed do-gooders that "we have decided to put our pride aside
and ask all of you who will benefit from our struggle to help shoulder the
burden of legal expenses." The Monsanto hormone story
is a big one. But, while Wilson and Akre added to it, the story had been
reported long before they discovered it. Whatever their motives, their fight has
brought attention to Monsanto and "Frankenfood." And, they've picked
up several awards. To turbo charge their
fundraising following defeat of their lawsuit, they claim they'll have to pay
Fox's legal costs, as much as $3 million. That's a gross exaggeration. Fox won
fees only for the relatively minor portion spent during the appeal of a jury
decision. The media critics didn't
seem to notice that the duo had been secretive about their finances. So, when
Wilson and Akre late last year quietly purchased a 5,000-square-foot, $1.4
million luxury townhouse near Jacksonville, Fla., the press critics were out to
lunch. Creative Loafing obtained records of the townhouse purchase, which
showed only a $300,000 mortgage -- indicating a $1.1 million down payment. When confronted with the
records, Wilson last week refused to disclose any accounting of money he
collected for the lawsuit. He claimed there were errors in the public records I
obtained about the townhouse, but he refused to cite the specific mistakes or
even to say whether they were significant. He threatened litigation if I ran the
information that he claimed was erroneous. Florida law, as with most states,
protects reporting on the contents of public records. So, if Wilson and Akre are
not exactly penniless crusaders or impoverished media martyrs, what were they? Wilson and Akre
were hired by WTVT in Tampa in
December 1996 -- before Fox owned the station. The non-Fox news director, who
would be fired by the Murdochites, had similar problems with Wilson and Akre as
did his Fox replacements. This poses no little problem to the logic of
generating hate against Fox, so the media critics simply ignore the fact that
Fox inherited a problem. The duo contended the
station had mangled their reporting to appease Monsanto. The station countered
the reporters were sabotaging the process. Court documents show Wilson conceded
"there's not really a lot of difference between" their script and
what was approved by their managers. So what was the problem? My
opinion: The two wanted a meltdown and a very lucrative martyrdom -- from
fundraising to book deals. Florida's whistleblower law
protects people who refuse to violate a law, rule or regulation. Wilson and
Akre claimed this includes the 1934 Communications Act that expresses a policy
against intentional distortion by broadcasters. In reality, the FCC has
never adopted a formal rule on news distortion. For the FCC to Monday-morning
quarterback news decisions would be an obvious violation of news organizations'
First Amendment rights. Court decisions are clear, as with a 1985 opinion that
concluded the FCC will not "inquire why a particular piece of information
was reported or not reported." More important, the Fox
station was committed to running a gutsy report on the hormone, and eventually
did without Wilson's and Akre's participation. WTVT also wanted to include Monsanto's
position for fairness and to protect the station from a libel suit -- standard
operating procedure in investigative reporting. That inclusion is what
Wilson and Akre decry as "distortion" or depict on their website as a
"lie." Monsanto may well have been deceptive. This is murky science,
however. And companies lie to the media all the time. The reporter's job is to
provide as much information as possible and let the viewer or reader decide. If
the reporter feels a source isn't being candid, the solution isn't to snip the
material, but to build a case with facts that expose the deception. Ultimately, Florida
appellate judges ruled on a simple point of law. The FCC has never codified its
policy against news distortion into an enforceable law, rule or regulation.
Thus, Wilson and Akre didn't have a whistleblower's case. There's Fox and
then there's Fox. Many at the
network's local stations laud the independence granted them -- while flinching
at the stridency on the Fox News Channel. Carolyn Forrest, an Atlanta media
attorney who represented WTVT, says there are often disagreements about what to
put on the air, "but I don't know of a case where the network has
intervened for political or advertising reasons." And, Michael Carlin, who
for three decades has guided the stellar investigative reporting team at
Atlanta's Fox owned-and-operated affiliate, WAGA, says the station is the best
place to do investigative journalism in Georgia. "We're left alone,"
he said. "We have more resources and more time on the air to tell our
stories. ... The change in ownership to Fox hasn't changed our ability to do
great investigative journalism." WTVT in Tampa had a similar
tradition, which is why Wilson and Akre were hired. Instead of gut-punching
news, however, the station and its former reporters ended up in court three
years ago. Each reporter could have
won on two whistleblower points -- that the station had fired them for
complaining about news distortion, and that the station had fired them for
threatening to go to the FCC. Wilson lost on both. The
jury ruled for Akre on the threatening-to-go-to-the-FCC point. But this year,
Florida's 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled the case had no place in the
state's courts and reversed Akre's partial victory. Despite that, the two have
claimed the earlier trial decision as proof that the Fox stations broadcast
false and distorted news. It just ain't so -- at
least in this case. At the heart of the matter
is that Wilson/Akres' rhetoric trumpets that Fox had forced them to distort the
news. On their website, Wilson and Akre state: "[The] jury unanimously
determined that Fox 'acted intentionally and deliberately to falsify or distort
the plaintiffs' news reporting ...'" And, they describe Fox's defense as:
"It's not illegal to lie on the news." The truth? At the trial,
the duo made a much narrower claim, that they merely thought Fox was
distorting the news. The nuance is important. The jury, said Akre,
"reasonably believed [the station-approved script] would violate the
prohibition against intentional falsification or distortion of the news
...." Wilson/Akre twist the jury finding to state that Fox actually did
distort the news and lie. Here's a real conundrum for
those knee-jerk in adulation of Akre and Wilson. Each of the reporters could
have won on two separate issues. Wilson, who acted as his own attorney, lost on
both points put to the jury. Noted for ambush journalism, Wilson tried to spy
on one of WTVT's lawyers by posing as a flower delivery guy to get into her
apartment building. His courtroom style was bullying. I attended the trial, and
he wasn't credible on the stand. The jurors didn't believe him either. Since Wilson and Akre were
a team, and the jury ruled on the same points with both, how could the jurors
rule against Wilson on all points and for Akre on one? The difference is that
Akre, represented by counsel, successfully portrayed herself as a victim. The
jurors wanted to give her something -- $425,000 -- and figured Fox could afford
it. If the jurors had known Wilson
and Akre were far -- very, very, very far -- from being penniless, I think Akre
would have lost too. The duo's self-serving
version of events is eagerly picked
up by the Fox haters. Charman, in Extra!, egregiously misrepresents what
the Florida appellate court ruled in February. She rhetorically asks what
protection reporters have against employers that want them to distort the news,
and then says the court's answer is: "None." "Absent from the
court's decision was any recognition that Fox broadcasts on the public's
airwaves," she adds, "and in return for that incredibly lucrative
privilege, the Communications Act of 1934 requires it to broadcast in 'the
public interest, convenience and necessity.'" Nowhere can you find in the
court's decision a statement that reporters have no protections against
employers who want to distort the news. It isn't there. Moreover, the Florida
appellate court wasn't asked to make any recognition about the "lucrative
privilege" of broadcasting, nor is it the role of the court to make such a
determination in an employment dispute. The appellate court did
suggest that the proper arena for the fight is the Federal Communications
Commission. Wilson and Akre could have challenged WTVT's license. They haven't
done so because, I'd argue, they know there is a mountain of FCC opinion that
deters the agency from second-guessing broadcast news organizations --
precisely to protect journalists from government stomping on First Amendment
rights. Fox could have settled long
ago -- probably for far less money than the jury award. But Fox attorney Ted
Russell said, "We couldn't allow that [jury] verdict to stand. Most
companies would have been happy to avoid paying money. But we felt we had to
stand behind our journalists, whose reputations had been besmirched by Wilson
and Akre." Wilson and Akre, meanwhile,
redoubled their panhandling. On their fundraising Web page, they whine that
"we were just hoping to get back on our feet." Oh, and pay no
attention to that million dollar down payment we just made on our swank digs. Senior Editor John Sugg
previously was editor of CL's Tampa sister paper, the Weekly Planet, where he reported
on Fox and Wilson/Akre. Sugg can be reached at 404-614-1241 or at john.sugg@creativeloafing.com. 09.11.03 |
From
my fellow travelers
on the left, I daily hear the litany: Hate Fox! Fox is evil!