MORE
     COVERAGE
Ø     Akre Reacts
Ø     Wilson Reacts
Ø     Jury Verdict Form
Ø     Jury Instructions
Ø     Steve's Message to Monsanto
Ø     Fox Still Lying
Ø     The Mainstream
News Coverage
Ø    Thanks Around
The World

 The Final Day
        The last day of the grueling, five-week-long trial began with the litigants agreeing on final jury instructions and the verdict form which would be given to the panel.
        Fox had proposed lengthy instructions and a multi-page jury verdict form for each defendant.  The final instructions both sides agreed to were written on 32 pages but the verdict form itself was pared down to a single page for each plaintiff.
        Shortly after10 a.m. trial Judge Ralph Steinberg began the half-hour task of reading the instructions to the jury before sending them into the jury room to begin deliberations.
        Bruce Gold, the seventh and alternate juror, was then released by the judge who thanked him for his five weeks of service.  As he left the courthouse, he stopped in a courthouse lounge where for more than 20 minutes he answered questions from the plaintiffs and lawyers and employees of Fox.  

What The Jury Decided
        "Do you find that the plaintiff Jane Akre has proven by the greater weight of the evidence that the defendant New World Communications of Tampa through its employees or agents terminated her employment or took other retaliatory personnel action against her because she opposed or refused to participate in the broadcast of a false, distorted or slanted news report which she reasonable believed would violate the prohibition against intentional falsification or distortion of the news on television if it were aired?"
        The jury verdict as to question one:  No.  The courtroom remained tense as the clerk went on to read question number 2:
        "Do you find that the plaintiff Jane Akre has proven, by the greater weight of the evidence, that the defendant, through its employees or agents, terminated her employment or took other retaliatory personnel action against her because she threatened to disclose to the Federal Communications Commission under oath, in writing, the broadcast of a false, distorted, or slanted news report which she reasonably believed would violate the prohibition against intentional falsification or distortion of the news on television, if it were aired?"
        The jury verdict as to question 2:  Yes.
        With one of the first two questions answered in the affirmative, the clerk went on to read the third question before the jury:
        What is the amount of lost wages, if any, lost earning capacity, if any, and damages, if any, sustained by the plaintiff Jane Akre?
        For lost wages:  $88,725
        For lost earning capacity:  $120,750
        For other damages:  $215,525
        The clerk then proceeded to read the same questions as to the jury's findings with regard to plaintiff Wilson's claim, reporting that the jury voted "No" to both questions and therefore awarded him nothing. 
        "I learned it is extremely difficult if not impossible to be both a strong and aggressive advocate for yourself in the courtroom and a victim at the same time, "Wilson told reporters after the jury was dismissed. 
        The more aggressively Wilson interrogated hostile Fox witnesses to bring out the truth in front of the jury, the more he seemed to confirm the Fox claim that he was a difficult employee, the reason station officials claimed they chose not to renew his contract for a second year.  
        Although the reporter's questions drew admissions and responses that shocked and surprised even the Fox defense attorneys at times, they sometimes led to bitter confrontations in the courtroom.  At one point, Fox attorney Greg Jones screamed at Wilson, "You're the biggest liar I've ever known!"  He was admonished by the judge and repeatedly had to be told to answer Wilson's questions responsively.
        "The jury was told they must determine whether I was fired because I objected or refused to participate in the production of a slanted story. ," Wilson explained.  In fact, the exact instruction to the jury was 'if you determine that this was the reason for the termination, then your verdict shall be for the plaintiff'.
        "The problem was the jury had no option to find that the slanted news report was a compelling reason, or a substantial reason, or even just one of the reasons," Wilson said.  "With those instructions, it had to be the reason.  And once I admitted to being difficult in the face of my bosses telling me to lie on the air, I think the jurors decided my intransigence certainly could have also been another reason they wanted to get rid of me.
        "Jane and I were a team.  We were working on the same story.  This jury has now decided that what Jane threatened to disclose to the FCC was a false, distorted and slanted news report," Wilson added.
        "That is a stain that no amount of spin from $650-an-hour Washington lawyers who specialize in telling you what the definition of "is" is can never take away.  No appeal can ever remove it, either.  And neither can any amount of lying about, as WTVT has resorted to doing on its own newscasts," he said.
         "Jane and I have a lot of respect for many of the fine people who work there.  They need to take a look at Friday night's 6 p.m. news transcript and then look  how the spin changed in the 10 p.m. news transcript...and compare that to what the jury said on the verdict form itself.  the transcript of what what their own station reported at 6 p.m.  [CLICK HERE to see Fox distortions at 10 p.m. noted in red]