Reporter's jury award tossed out

A WTVT-Ch. 13 staffer says she was fired because she refused to report misleading information.

By BRADY DENNIS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 15, 2003

An appeals court on Friday overturned a $425,000 jury award to former WTVT-Ch. 13 investigative reporter Jane Akre, who claimed the station fired her after she refused to include misleading information in a news report.

In a unanimous decision, the Florida Second District Court of Appeal in Lakeland said that Akre failed to show the station had violated any state laws.

Akre and then-husband Steve Wilson were hired by the station in December 1996 as part of its highly-touted "Investigators" team.

But conflict began in 1997 while the pair worked on a story about bovine growth hormone, or BGH, a controversial substance manufactured by the Monsanto Corp.

The couple produced a four-part series that said Florida supermarket chains did little to avoid selling milk from cows treated with the hormone, despite assuring customers otherwise.

They said WTVT executives and a Fox network attorney encouraged inclusion of statements from Monsanto representatives that the reporters knew were false.

Akre and Wilson were fired after an "eight-month tug-of-war" over the story.

Fox said they were fired because of insubordination.

Akre and Wilson claimed they were wrongfully fired for refusing to use misleading information in the story and because they had threatened to report the station to the Federal Communications Commission.

In August 2000, a jury awarded Akre $425,000, saying the station retaliated against her for threatening to blow the whistle on a false or distorted news report.

The same jury, however, decided the station had not wronged Wilson.

On Friday, the appeals court said Akre's threat to report the station's actions to the FCC didn't deserve protection under the state whistle blower's statute.

The statute states that an employer must violate a "law, rule or regulation."

But the FCC's policy against falsification of the news doesn't fall under any of those categories, the court held.

WTVT general manager Bob Linger was happy with Friday's decision.

"It's vindication for WTVT, and we're very pleased," Linger said. "It's the case we've been making for two years. She never had a legal claim."

Akre can still appeal the decision.

Neither she nor Wilson could be reached for comment on Friday.

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