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Report Archive:
ˇ August 26, 2000:
VERDICT
DOESN'T STOP FOX FROM CONTINUING TO DISTORT THE NEWS
News, Analysis and Commentary about how Fox twists news of verdict and
reports "total vindication"
ˇ August 18, 2000:
VICTORY IN COURT!
Full coverage of the jury's decision in the Fox/BGH suit
ˇ August 5, 2000:
Guest Editorial
ˇ July 27, 2000:
Trial Coverage: Days 8-9
Startling Admission from Fox
V-P Who Fired Wilson/Akre
ˇ July 26, 2000:
Trial Coverage: Day 7
V-P News Lays Claim To
Insanity Defense
ˇ July 24, 2000:
Trial Coverage: Day 6
Second week of trial begins
ˇ July 21, 2000:
Trial Coverage: Day 5
Week one ends with a bang;
Fox seeks mistrial, Judge
says no
ˇ July 20, 2000:
Trial Coverage: Days 3 and 4
ˇ July 18, 2000:
Trial Coverage: Day 2
ˇ July 17, 2000:
Trial Coverage: Day 1
ˇ July 14, 2000:
Justice For Sale In Tampa?
Finally at the courthouse,
litigants can't afford to use
the courtroom facilities
ˇ July 12, 2000:
Fox Loses Key Motion; Jury
Is Seated
Plaintiffs do not have to
prove Fox guilty of violating Communications Act
ˇ July 8, 2000:
Potential Landmine Could
Derail Entire Case
ˇ June 30, 2000:
Judge Steinberg Ready To
Get Case Back On Track
ˇ June 26, 2000:
Another
Judge Says 'No' to Hearing Wilson/Akre v Fox Case
ˇ June 21, 2000:
Still No
Judge To Hear Fox/BGH Case While Foxes Dishes More Distortion To WTVT Tampa
Viewers
ˇ June 16, 2000:
Trial
Date Pushed Back Again; New Judge To Be Selected
ˇ June 8, 2000:
Fox
Manager Who Fired Akre and Wilson In Tampa Gets Big Promotion
David Boylan Flies Into The Sunset to Manage KTTV, Los Angeles
ˇ June 6, 2000:
Fox Trial
Will Start Sooner Than Expected
It will proceed in the heat of the summer, probably in July
ˇ May 25, 2000:
Fox Trial
Will Not Start June 12 as Scheduled
ˇ May 18, 2000:
Fox Still
Stalls on Testimony of Its president Mitchell Stern
Pre-trial hearing is otherwise uneventful
ˇ May 8, 2000:
Ralph
Nader Testifies About Broadcasters' Public Interest Requirement
Presidential candidate gives testimony at pre-trial depo
ˇ May 5, 2000:
Court-ordered Mediation Is Brief and
Unsuccessful
Trial set to begin June 12
ˇ April 28,2000:
Fox Challenges rBGH Experts At Depositions
Fox lawyers laying ground-
work to tell jurors experts are cancer scaremongers?
ˇ April 26,2000:
Walter Cronkite
Testifies on Behalf of Akre & Wilson
Fox lawyers lodge objections
ˇ October 19:
Fox Lawyers Insist On Secrecy At Deposition
French
TV Ejected
ˇ October 18:
FDA Wants Comments on G-M Foods
Public
Meetings Start in November
ˇ October 13:
Judge Rules: Trial Will Proceed:
Defense loses third effort to have case dismissed
ˇ September 24:
MSNBC:
Gene-modified foods might get labels:
Industry weighs voluntary steps, U.S. studies options as well
ˇ September 20:
Trial Still Set to Start Soon:
Busy Docket Delays foxBGHsuit
ˇ August 4:
MSNBC:
Mutable Feast:
Will the fight over gene-altered food products leapfrog across the Atlantic?
ˇ June 30:
Consumers International:
UN Health Group Shuns BGH
ˇ June 1:
New York Times:
Farmers’ Right To Sue Grows - Food Warning Muzzle Likely
ˇ May 10:
Corporate Crime Reporter:
Monsanto Officials Join Leading Consumer, Environmental Groups
ˇ May 3:
Fox Deceives Viewers in Primetime,
Too
Net Admits Staging after INSIDE EDITION Report
ˇ April 30:
Democracy Group Award
to Akre/Wilson
Fired Reporters Cited for "Courage in Journalism"
ˇ April 29:
New Trial Date is October
11
Fox Piles On Big-Name Lawyers
ˇ April 17:
Clinton Lawyer Joins Fox
Legal Team
David Kendall Involvement Confirmed in Letter to Monsanto
ˇ April 16:
Fox Pleads for Another Delay
Later Trial Date to be Set April 29th
ˇ April 1:
Judge Says BGH Case Will
Go To Trial
Opening Gavel Falls May 10th
ˇ February 16:
PENTHOUSE Exposes BGH,
Fox Coverup:
First-rate story of BGH situation and lawsuit against Fox TV
(rated G -- no nudity, just the story)
ˇ January 25:
ENS
Summary of BGH Developments
ˇ January 14:
How Fox Wanted to Slant News
of Canadian Concerns
Canadian BGH Concerns Were Big Issue In Firing of Fox Reporters
ˇ January 14:
Canada Says NO to BGH!
Read the CBC Story
or 
ˇ January 14:
Health Canada Rejects Bovine Growth Hormone in Canada
Government News Release
ˇ December 16:
Akre & Wilson Win Courage
Award
For Work On Story Which Cost Them Their Jobs
ˇ December 15:
ABC NEWS Catches Up on BGH
Read the ABC Story
or
ˇ November 7:
FOX Legal (8/28) Answers
to Reporters' Complaint Now Available
ˇ November 1:
Monsanto
and Fox: Partners in Censorship
PR Watch - Showcase Article
ˇ October 30:
Canadians Probe Coverup Claim
Read CBC Story
or
ˇ October 24:
Reporters Get Top SPJ Ethics
Award
ˇ October 22:
BGH Issue Explodes in Canada:
Read CBC Story
or
ˇ October 7:
SECRET Canadian Study Leaked...
...BGH safety questions unanswered?
ˇ Sept 13:
Akre-Wilson Depos Start
ˇ Sept 10:
TIMES/St. Petersburg
SP Times covers NutraSweet flap
ˇ Sept 10:
Our Story: Fox Still Protecting
Monsanto?
ˇ Sept 8:
Fox Pulls Plug on NutraSweet
Foe
ˇ Sept 1:
Reporters Respond To Defense
ˇ READ
story FOX-TV refused to air...
or
ˇ July 14:
Judge refuses to dismiss
all but one count of reporters' suit
ˇ July 5:
OBSERVER/London
Digger Still Plays Dirty
ˇ July 1:
Depositions Continue, Trial Date
Set
ˇ June 7:
TIMES/St. Petersburg
Akre/Wilson Preparing FCC Complaint
ˇ May 26:
Judge rejects Defense motion
for Protective Order
ˇ May 25:
WEEKLY PLANET/Tampa:
Grazing A Stink
- - -Don't Have a Cow
ˇ May 23:
NEW YORK TIMES:
(Silenced) Reporters... Post Web Site
ˇ May 21:
Wilson/Akre demand on-air correction
ˇ April 29:
FOX-TV asks court:
Dismiss case
and Delay depositions
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FOX,
WILSON BOTH
SEEK COURT ACTION IN WAKE OF JURY VERDICT
By STEVE WILSON
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TAMPA (September 7, 2000) –After publicly claiming that
the jury’s verdict in the Fox/BGH suit completely vindicated Fox
Television's good name and reputation, Fox lawyers have filed a motion
and a 62-page memo asking the trial court to vacate the jury’s decision
and to grant a directed verdict in favor of the broadcasting
company. Many of the
points are succinctly summarized in the Table
of Contents which itself runs two full pages. |
Fox/BGH Suit Appeals
Filed |
In a surprise move, reporter Steve Wilson, one of the two
fired Fox journalists who filed the suit with co-plaintiff Jane Akre,
also filed a separate motion
on his own behalf late last Friday (September 1, 2000) asking the court to correct a ruling regarding the
jury instructions and to order a new trial on only his whistleblower
claim.
Both motions are expected to be heard on October 12, 2000 by
judge Ralph Steinberg who presided over the trial which ended
August 18. |
| Fox’s
Argument
The Fox motions are based on the following five grounds:
·
There is insufficient evidence to support the jury’s
$425,000 damage award it gave to Akre after finding that Fox
retaliated against her for threatening to blow the whistle to the
FCC
·
Akre failed to establish that there is any “law,
rule, or regulation” against lying or distorting the news on a
television
·
Akre failed to establish that the station’s conduct
was actually in violation of any law, rule or regulation (if there
is one)
·
There is insufficient evidence that Akre ever had a
good-faith belief that Fox was deliberately and intentionally trying
to distort the news, as the jury found it was
·
No court has the power to determine that a television
station is not acting in accordance with the law that requires
broadcasters to operate in the public interest because only the FCC
can make such a determination.
A key argument Fox makes is that the standard which all
broadcasters must meet to get a license to use the public airways—the requirement that they operate every station in the
public interest, convenience and necessity—could not ever
be violated by any broadcaster anywhere.
“Although a broadcast licensee like WTVT certainly could
‘violate’ rules or regulations that the FCC promulgates to flesh
out the public-interest standard, there are no rules or regulations
relating to news distortion, only a policy,” the Fox lawyers
argue.
“And in the absence of rules or regulations, it simply is
not possible for WTVT or any broadcast licensee to ‘violate’ the
enabling statute itself,” Fox contends.
The defense brief makes no mention of at least two cases in
which stations actually lost their licenses for deliberately
distorting the news. In
those cases, the FCC appears to have relied upon exactly the
standards which Fox now argues do not apply to the Fox/BGH suit.
Virtually all of the points argued in these latest motions
have been argued by Fox lawyers before, either at trial or in
pre-trial motions the defendant lost. If judge Steinberg does not reverse himself and, as widely
expected, refuses to grant these latest Fox motions, the defendant
would then be required to post an $850,000 bond and take its
arguments to the state’s Second District Court of Appeals.
[Editor's note: For
anyone interested, you can download and print the entire 62-page
Fox legal memo in support of its motion. With a 56k
connection, this pdf document take about six minutes to download.]
Wilson’s
Argument
Wilson’s Motions For Re-hearing and Re-trial
center upon the judge’s instructions to the jury that it
must decide the sole reason for the firing of both Wilson and Akre
was the exercise of each worker’s rights protected under the
Whistleblower law.
Although the jury found in Akre’s favor, it did not reach
such a finding for Wilson and, therefore, awarded him no damages
whatsoever.
The instruction at issue, proposed by Fox lawyers over the
strong objections of Wilson and Akre’s attorneys, read as follows
“You must determine whether the Defendant WTVT terminated
the employment of Ms. Akre And Mr. Wilson because they objected to
or refused to participate in an activity or practice of the
Defendant that violated a federal law…If you determine that this
was the reason for Defendant’s termination of plaintiffs’
employment, then your verdict should be for Plaintiffs.
Elsewhere in the instructions the jury was remanded it was to
follow this wording as well:
“An employee may not recover in any action brought under
the private whistleblower statute if the retaliatory personnel
action was predicated upon a ground other than the employee’s
exercise of a right protected by the whistleblower statute.”
During the trial, Fox had argued to the jury that there were
a number of other possible motives for Wilson’s termination..
The Plaintiff, representing himself, argued those were
actually only a pretext for the real reason, which was his
resistance to orders to distort the news on the air.
Wilson’s argument that the jury instructions were in error
are centered upon a case which was decided by an appeals court
virtually on the even of the Fox/BGH trial.
In a case known as Sierminski
v. Transouth Financial Corporation, a court ruled that the
standard of proof applied by federal courts in cases where
employment discrimination is claimed should also apply to state
court rulings involving whistleblower claims.
Whenever an employment discrimination case is filled under
federal Title VII—claims which allege wrongful termination due to
age, sex, or race, for instance—the plaintiffs must prove that
those protected conditions were “a motivating factor for
any employment practice, even though other factors also motivated
the termination.”
The Sierminski court ruled that lower courts in Florida
should apply the same standard when it comes to Florida
Whistleblowers claims. Judge
Steinberg will be asked to re-consider his earlier ruling which
appears to be inconsistent with Sierminski.
Since the jury cannot be
re-convened to make a decision based on new instructions, a new
trial on Wilson’s claim alone
is the only remedy. As
a separate plaintiff, such a decision would have not no effect on
the verdict the jury decided in Akre's favor.
ADDITIONAL
NEWS COVERAGE: 8/17/00 Weekly
Planet: Your
Witness (John Sugg's bitter personal attack which relies on demonstrably
false information to conclude Akre and Wilson are "cheap, false
martyrs" unworthy of support from anyone.) 9/5/00
St. Petersburg Times: Verdict
Not Expected To Affect TV News 9/7/00
Weekly Planet: Win
Some, Lose Some |
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