Trial pits two reporters against Fox

The two sued WTVT-Ch. 13 over their firings and the handling of a news report. The civil trial starts today.

By LARRY DOUGHERTY

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 17, 2000

TAMPA -- Was it a case of corporate censorship? Or did two reporters refuse to be fair?

That's the gist of a civil trial starting today in Hillsborough Circuit Court. It pits television investigators Steve Wilson and Jane Akre against the Fox station that fired them three years ago: WTVT-Ch. 13.

Wilson and Akre say they were dismissed for refusing to lie in a story about a controversial hormone being used by Florida milk producers. They say a multinational corporation put pressure on their station to blunt their stories.

But in court papers, lawyers for Fox argue that the couple were dismissed for being insubordinate. Fox claims the reporters filed a biased story and refused to balance it as the editing process dragged though six months and at least 73 versions of the script.

Some famous names will help explain these conflicting stories to jurors. Wilson and Akre plan to call Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate turned Green Party presidential candidate, to testify. They're also hoping to introduce testimony they took from Walter Cronkite about media ethics in the age of corporate takeovers.

On the defense side, the lead lawyer representing Fox TV is from the Washington firm of Williams & Connolly, which defended President Clinton during his impeachment.

Wilson is an Emmy-winning veteran of tabloid television shows like Inside Edition. He once scuffled with a U.S. senator while reporting on political junkets. He is acting as his own lawyer in the case. His wife, Jane Akre, formerly worked at WTSP-Ch. 10. More recently, she has worked as a weekend anchor on Bay News 9. They see their story as a corporate rejection of the public's right to know.

Jurors are "going to get a look inside a newsroom, and what happened when a big major multinational corporation put pressure on this news organization and predicted dire consequences," Wilson said in a recent interview. Fox 13 "put its own selfish corporate interest ahead of the public's interest," he said.

Wilson and Akre want compensation for the damage they claim was caused by their firings, an amount they suggest could be as high as $2-million. They pledge to contribute any award beyond that to the protection of press freedoms and embattled reporters.

Defense attorneys for Fox deny wrongdoing. Besides the lawyer for Williams & Connolly, Fox is also represented by St. Petersburg lawyer Pat Anderson. Her firm, Rahdert, Anderson, McGowan & Steele, litigates First Amendment issues for the St. Petersburg Times.

Instead of granting an interview, Fox's attorneys referred a reporter to a pretrial summary of the case. It said the station declined to pick up Wilson's and Akre's contract for a second year after the editing process on the hormone story bogged down into contentious meetings and memos.

Akre began work in December 1996 as an investigative reporter and weekend anchor for $75,000 a year. Wilson was hired on a part-time basis to concentrate on pieces for the key ratings periods the TV industry refers to as the "sweeps." His annual salary was set at $40,000.

That same month, Akre began work on the milk story. It centered on the use of Posilac, a hormone manufactured by Monsanto Corp.

Posilac is a genetically engineered replica of a hormone cows produce naturally to spur growth. By injecting the hormone twice a week into cows, farmers can increase milk production by as much as a third. Posilac is also known as a bovine growth hormone, or BGH, for short.

The FDA approved the hormone for use on cows in 1993. Other organizations that have signed off on its use include the National Institutes of Health, the American Medical Association, the American Cancer Society and the World Health Organization, according to Fox.

But several scientists have voiced concerns. They claim BGH use is linked to higher levels of a growth factor suspected of promoting tumors. Another concern is that BGH increases the incidence of infection in cows, with a variety of consequences.

When questions were raised about the safety of milk from cows treated with Posilac, some Florida grocers said they would request their milk providers not use it.

After Fox hired Akre in 1996, she decided to follow up on that promise. Wilson pitched in. They found that at least seven Florida farmers were continuing to use BGH, raising questions about whether any Florida grocer could say their milk was BGH-free.

Their series was scheduled to run during the February 1997 sweeps period. The Friday before the series was to run, Fox received a threatening letter from Monsanto, saying that the reporters had demonstrated bias in their questioning and that their story would damage the company.

In court papers, Fox denied it wanted to broadcast an uncritical piece. A version eventually approved by Fox for broadcast, court papers said, was "a hard-hitting investigative piece on a subject of controversy" that contained a number of statements highly unfavorable to Monsanto, including:

A scientist saying that consumption of milk produced with BGH poses risks of breast and colon cancer.

A claim Monsanto was aware of infection problems with cows treated with its hormone.

Information that Posilac is banned from use in Canada and Europe, and a claim Monsanto had attempted to bribe a Canadian health official to win approval.

The fact Monsanto's history of products include Agent Orange and PCBs.

But Akre and Wilson say the station was bending too far in Monsanto's favor. They said Fox's use of lawyers to vet scripts compromised the journalistic integrity of the process.

Drafts of the scripts show the parties wrangled over phrases, such as how to identify one of the BGH critics. Different versions refer to the critic variously as a "reputable scientist," a "respected scientist" and a "well-credentialed M.D.," and finally with no description whatsoever.

Wilson said Fox ordered the inclusion of statements he and Akre considered lies, such as a statement from a Monsanto scientist that Posilac was "the most studied molecule certainly in the history of domestic animal science." Wilson and Akre say such statements, if broadcast, would violate an FCC rule against distortion in broadcast news. Wilson and Akre argue they are entitled to whistle-blower protection as a result.

Akre also has a breach of contract claim, arguing she didn't receive official notice within the proper time frame that the station was not picking up her contract for a second year.

Wilson and Akre's story never ran. After their dismissals, the station assigned another reporter to do a story that eventually aired. Fox 13 has hired a freelance reporter to provide its trial coverage to blunt claims that its reporting is biased by its status as a defendant.

In court papers, defense attorneys said the couple's claims about monetary damages are inflated.

Wilson said he and Akre are paying Akre's attorneys on an hourly basis, in place of the contingency-fee arrangement many lawyers use.

Wilson said they are pressing on despite the financial strain.

"I want to send a message to every reporter in America," Wilson said. "You can stand up and do the right thing and not be destroyed in the process."

- Larry Dougherty can be reached at (813) 226-3337 or dougherty@sptimes.com

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