Fox Manager Who Fired Akre, Wilson Gets A Big Promotion
By STEVE WILSON

TAMPA (June 8, 2000)—The Fox Television manager who allegedly pressured journalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson to lie on the air by telling them, "We paid $3 billion for these television stations, we'll tell you what the news is, the news is what we say it is!" has received a big promotion.           David Boylan, 48, flew out of Tampa last night headed for his new assignment as manager of KTTV, Channel 11 in Los Angeles.  He will run Fox's second biggest station as well as the Fox Sports Channel in California.         The move comes on virtually on the eve of what was to have been the start of the trial in the lawsuit brought by this reporter and journalist Jane Akre.  Both reporters filed suit in 1998 charging they were dismissed for refusing to broadcast what they knew to be false and distorted news reports about Bovine Growth Hormone.          Boylan, who has received a subpoena to appear at trial, is still obligated to return to testify.  The trial is expected to get underway in the next 30 days.         Boylan's boss, Fox Television Stations president Mitchell Stern, has fought all efforts to testify at deposition or at trial.  His lawyers today filed another motion with the Court, this time seeking to quash a subpoena issued to compel Stern to appear and give testimony.          Although Stern's lawyers once claimed he knew virtually nothing about the ethics dispute in Tampa, testimony from others showed he was far more involved than his lawyers let on.  It was Stern, in fact, who ordered lawyers reviewing the BGH story in Tampa to "take no risks" following receipt of threatening letters to Fox News chief Roger Ailes.         A local newspaper story about Boylan's promotion published in today's St. Petersburg's Times quoted the manager as saying he's loved every day at WTVT in Tampa.  He has testified in pre-trial proceedings that Akre and Wilson were disrespectful, gave him and other managers and station lawyers a terribly hard time, and generally disrupted operations at Channel 13.         Times TV writer Eric Deggans wrote that while Fox has enjoyed some temporary successes in the time Boylan has managed the station, he might just be getting out while the getting's good.  Deggans cited lower news ratings at the Fox-owned station in Tampa--and the upcoming trial of the charges brought by the two reporters Boylan suspended without pay, then axed just before Christmas 1997.

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