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Here are a series of articles and editorials from a variety of sources on the lawsuits and issues involving Fox News and fired reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson.
Milk, RBGH and Cancer, April 09, 1998
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Two veteran news reporters for Fox TV in Tampa, Florida have been fired for refusing to water down an investigative report on Monsanto's controversial milk hormone, rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone). Monsanto's rBGH is a genetically-engineered hormone sold to dairy farmers, who inject it into their cows every two weeks to increase milk production. In recent years, evidence has accumulated indicating that rBGH may promote cancer in humans who drink milk from rBGH-treated cows. It is the link between rBGH and cancer that Fox TV tried hardest to remove from the story. In the fall of 1996, award-winning reporters Steve Wilson and Jane Akre were hired by WTVT in Tampa to produce a series on rBGH in Florida milk. After more than a year's work on the rBGH series, and three days before the series was scheduled to air starting February 24, 1997, Fox TV executives received the first of two letters from lawyers representing Monsanto saying that Monsanto would suffer "enormous damage" if the series ran. WTVT had been advertising the series aggressively, but canceled it at the last moment. Monsanto's second letter warned of "dire consequences" for Fox if the series aired as it stood. (How Monsanto knew what the series contained remains a mystery.) According to documents filed in Florida's Circuit Court (13th Circuit), Fox lawyers then tried to water down the series, offering to pay the two reporters if they would leave the station and keep mum about what Fox had done to their work. The reporters refused Fox's offer, and on April 2, 1998, filed their own lawsuit against WTVT.
Steve Wilson has 26 years' experience as a working journalist and has won four Emmy awards for his investigative reporting. His wife, Jane Akre, has been a reporter and news anchor for 20 years, and has won a prestigious Associated Press award for investigative reporting.
The Wilson/Akre lawsuit charges that WTVT violated its license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by demanding that the reporters include known falsehoods in their rBGH series. The reporters also charge that WTVT violated Florida's "whistle blower" law. Many of the legal documents in the lawsuit --including Monsanto's threatening letters --have been posted on the world wide web at http://www.foxbghsuit.com for all to see.
No one will be surprised to learn that powerful corporations can intimidate TV stations into re-writing the news, but this case offers an unusually detailed glimpse of specific intimidation tactics and their effects inside a news organization. It is not pretty.
It has been well-documented by Monsanto and by others that rBGH-treated cows undergo several changes: their lives are shortened, they are more likely to develop mastitis, an infection of the udder (which then requires use of antibiotics, which end up in the milk along with increased pus), and they produce milk containing elevated levels of another hormone called IGF-1. It is IGF-1 that is associated with increased likelihood of human cancers.[1] (See REHW #381, #382, #383, #384, #483, but especially #454.)
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved rBGH for use in cows in 1993, but the approval process was controversial because former Monsanto employees went to work for the FDA, oversaw the approval process, then went back to work for Monsanto. (See REHW #381.)
Monsanto is notorious for marketing dangerous products while falsely claiming safety. The entire planet is now contaminated with hormone- disrupting, cancer-causing PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), thanks to Monsanto's poor judgment and refusal to be guided by early scientific evidence indicating harm. (See REHW #327, #328.) The 2,4,5-T in Agent Orange --the herbicide that has brought so much grief to tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans --is another example of Monsanto's poor judgment and failure to heed scientific evidence to prevent harm. Critics says rBGH is just one more example of Monsanto's monumentally poor judgment. When Wilson and Akre asked Monsanto officials to respond to these allegations of past poor judgment, Monsanto had no comment.
The Wilson/Akre rBGH series (a script of which is available on the web site www.foxbghsuit.com) makes the following points:
** rBGH was never properly tested before FDA allowed it on the market. A standard cancer test of a new human drug requires two years of testing with several hundred rats. But rBGH was tested for only 90 days on 30 rats. This short-term rat study was submitted to FDA but was never published. FDA has refused to allow anyone outside FDA to review the raw data from this study, saying it would "irreparably harm" Monsanto.[2] Therefore the linchpin study of cancer and rBGH has never been subjected to open scientific peer review.
** Some Florida dairy herds grew sick shortly after starting rBGH treatment. One farmer, Charles Knight --who lost 75% of his herd --says on camera that Monsanto and Monsanto-funded researchers at University of Florida withheld from him the information that other dairy herds were suffering similar problems. He says Monsanto and the university researchers told him only that he must be doing something wrong.
** The law required Monsanto to notify the FDA if they received complaints by dairy farmers such as Charles Knight. But four months after Knight complained to Monsanto, FDA had heard nothing from Monsanto. Monsanto's explanation? Despite a series of visits to Knight's farm, and many phone conversations, Monsanto officials say it took them four months to figure out that Knight was complaining about rBGH.
** Monsanto claims on camera that every truckload of milk is tested for excessive antibiotics --but Florida dairy officials and scientists on camera say this is simply not true.
** Monsanto says on camera that Canada's ban on rBGH has nothing to do with human health concerns --but Canadian government officials speaking on camera say just the opposite.
** Canadian government officials, speaking on camera, say they believe Monsanto tried to bribe them with offers of $1 to $2 million to gain approval for rBGH in Canada. Monsanto officials say the Canadians misunderstood their offer of "research" funds.
** Monsanto officials claim on camera that "the milk has not changed" because of rBGH treatment of cows. As noted earlier, there is abundant evidence --some of it from Monsanto's own studies --that this is definitely not true.
** On camera, a Monsanto official claims that Monsanto has not opposed dairy co-ops labeling their milk as "rBGH-free." But this is definitely not true. Monsanto brought two lawsuits against dairies that labeled their milk "rBGH-free." Faced with the Monsanto legal juggernaut, the dairies folded and Monsanto then sent letters around to other dairy organizations announcing the outcome of the two lawsuits --in all likelihood, for purposes of intimidation. (Conveniently, the FDA regulations that discourage labeling of milk as "rBGH-free" were written by Michael Taylor, an attorney who worked for Monsanto both before and after his tenure as an FDA official. See REHW #381.)
At the web site www.foxbghsuit.com, you will find the version of the Wilson/Akre rBGH series as it was re-written by Fox's attorneys. It has been laundered and perfumed. Most importantly, nearly all of the references to cancer have been removed from the script. Instead of cancer we now have "human health effects" --whatever those may be.
The Wilson/Akre lawsuit comes at an especially good time to publicize the relationship between rBGH and human cancer because new evidence has come to light.
When a cow is injected with rBGH, its milk production is stimulated, but not directly. The presence of rBGH in the cow's blood stimulates production of another hormone, called Insulin-Like Growth Factor 1, or IGF-1 for short. It is IGF-1 that stimulates milk production.
IGF-1 is a naturally-occurring hormone-protein in both cows and humans. [3] The IGF-1 in cows is chemically identical to the IGF-1 in humans. [4] The use of rBGH increases the levels of IGF-1 in the cow's milk, though the amount of the increase is disputed. Furthermore, IGF-1 in milk is not destroyed by pasteurization. Because IGF-1 is active in humans --causing cells to divide --any increase in IGF-1 in milk raises obvious questions: will it cause inappropriate cell division and growth, leading to growth of tumors?
The Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association formally expressed concern about IGF-1 related to rBGH in 1991, saying, "Further studies will be required to determine whether ingestion of higher than normal concentrations of bovine insulin-like growth factor [IGF-1] is safe for children, adolescents, and adults."[5]
Monsanto's public position since 1994 has been that IGF-1 is not elevated in the milk from rBGH-treated cows --despite its own studies to the contrary. For example, writing in the British journal, LANCET, in 1994, Monsanto researchers said "...IGF-1 concentration in milk of rBST-treated cows is unchanged," and "...there is no evidence that hormonal content of milk from rBST-treated cows is in any way different from cows not so treated."[6] [Monsanto calls rBGH rBST (recombinant bovine somatotropin), thus avoiding use of the word 'hormone.'] However, in a published letter, the British researcher T. B. Mepham reminded Monsanto that in its 1993 application to the British government for permission to sell rBGH in England, Monsanto itself reported that "the IGF-1 level went up substantially [about five times as much]."[7] The U.S. FDA acknowledges that IGF-1 is elevated in milk from rBGH-treated cows.[4] Other proponents of rBGH acknowledge that it at least doubles the amount of IGF-1 hormone in the milk.[8] The earliest report in the literature found that IGF-1 was elevated in the milk of rBGH-treated cows by a factor of 3.6.[9]
Does IGF-1 promote cancer? In January of this year a Harvard study of 15,000 white men published in SCIENCE reported that those with elevated --but still normal --levels of IGF-1 in their blood are 4 times as likely as average men to get prostate cancer.[1] The SCIENCE report ends saying, "Finally, our results raise concern that administration of GH [growth hormone] or IGF-1 over long periods, as proposed for elderly men to delay the effects of aging, may increase risk of prostate cancer." By analogy, Monsanto's current efforts to increase the IGF-1 levels in America's milk supply raise the question: if little boys drink milk from rBGH-treated cows over long periods, will the elevated levels of IGF-1 increase their prostate cancer rates? This is not a question that should be answered by a wholesale experiment on the American people --but that is precisely what Monsanto is currently doing. It is difficult to put a happy face on this, try as Fox might.
The Wilson/Akre story is one of talented, hard-working journalists trying to tell an important public health story, exposing lies and corruption by Monsanto, by the FDA, and now by Fox, too. If nothing else, perhaps the courage of Steve Wilson and Jane Akre will awaken many more of us to the potential dangers of Monsanto's latest experiment on America's children.
--Peter Montague (National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981/AFL-CIO)
=====
[1] June M. Chan and others, Plasma Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 [IGF- 1] and Prostate Cancer Risk: A Prospective Study," SCIENCE Vol. 279 (January 23, 1998), pgs. 563-566.
[2] In his book MILK, THE DEADLY POISON [ISBN 0-9659196-0-9] (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Argus Press [Tel. (201) 871-5871], 1997), pgs. 67-96, Robert Cohen describes his extensive efforts to obtain a copy of this unpublished study from FDA. Cohen filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the study and was refused; he appealed within FDA and lost. He then filed a lawsuit in federal court and, again, lost. FDA and the courts agree that the public should never learn what happened to those rats fed rBGH because it would "irreparably harm" Monsanto. Based on the scant information that has been published about the weight gains of the rats during the 90-day study, Cohen believes that many or perhaps all of the rats got cancer. Weight-gain in the rats is described cryptically in Tables 1 and 2 in Judith C. Juskevich and C. Greg Guyer, "Bovine Growth Hormone: Human Food Safety Evaluation," SCIENCE Vol. 249 (1990), pg. 875-884.
[3] T.B. Mepham, "Public health implications of bovine somatotrophin [sic] use in dairying: discussion paper," JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF MEDICINE Vol. 85 (December 1992), pgs. 736-739.
[4] Judith C. Juskevich and C. Greg Guyer, "Bovine Growth Hormone: Human Food Safety Evaluation." SCIENCE Vol. 249 (1990), pgs. 875-884.
[5] Council on Scientific Affairs, American Medical Association. "Biotechnology and the American Agricultural Industry." JAMA [JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION] Vol. 265, No. 11 (March 20, 1991), pg. 1433.
[6] Robert J. Collier and others, "[Untitled Letter to the Editor]," LANCET Vol. 344 (September 17, 1994), pg. 816. Monsanto Senior Vice President Virginia V. Weldon, MD, says, "...the FDA has concluded from detailed studies that IGF-1 is not increased." See Virginia V. Weldon, "Re 'A Needless New Risk of Breast Cancer, Commentary, March 20'," LOS ANGELES TIMES April 4, 1994, pg. 6.
[7] T. B. Mepham and others, "Safety of milk from cows treated with bovine somatotropin," LANCET Vol. 344 (November 19, 1994), pgs. 1445- 1446.
[8] William H. Daughaday and David M. Barbano, "Bovine somatotropin supplementation of dairy cows: is the milk safe?" JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION Vol. 264, No. 8 (August 22, 1990), pgs. 1003-1005.
[9] C. G. Prosser and others, "Increased secretion of insulin-like growth factor-1 into milk of cows treated with recombinantly derived bovine growth hormone," JOURNAL OF DAIRY SCIENCE Vol. 56 (1989), pgs. 17-26.
Descriptor terms: bovine growth hormone; bgh; rbgh; farming; dairying; agriculture; monsanto; cancer; carcinogens; fda; food and drug administration; reporters; firings; tv; fox tv; tampa, fl; fl; steve wilson; jane akre; wtvt; whistle blowers; fcc; journalistic ethics; mastitis; antibiotics; igf-1; corruption; 2,4,5-t; pcbs; agent orange; vietnam veterans; canada; ama;
from The Texas Observer
The Land of Milk and Money
by Michael King
Those celebrity milk mustaches are not what they seem. That's one message from reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, fired in 1997 from their jobs with Florida television station WTVT-Tampa, when their investigative series on the effects of hormone additives in dairy production ran afoul of station managers and the Monsanto Corporation.
Monsanto makes Posilac, the trade name of the most widely distributed form of artificially synthesized, "recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone" (rBGH), which is injected into cows to boost milk production. According to Monsanto and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, there is "no significant difference" between milk produced with or without the use of rBGH; according to the series produced by Akre and Wilson but pulled from production by WTVT, the differences are significant enough to get rBGH (also known by its chemical name, rBST) banned in Canada, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
Akre and Wilson (who are married) traveled through Texas last month, telling their story and soliciting public support for their whistleblower lawsuit against WTVT, filed in April of 1998 and scheduled for trial this June. The reporters say they were fired because they refused the station's demands to edit their stories in such a way as to broadcast false or misleading information, which would be in violation of federal law as well as Federal Communication Commission regulations, both of which require broadcasters to operate in the public interest. Under Florida's whistleblower statute, employees have a right to sue their employers if they believe they were fired for refusing to break the law.
The station's managers insist that they made a good-faith effort to edit the milk stories, but that Akre and Wilson were uncooperative and their reports remained too "biased and one-sided" for broadcast (in the spring of 1998, a few months after their dismissal, an rBGH series produced by another reporter but partly based upon Akre and Wilson's previous work was broadcast by WTVT). In their response to the Akre and Wilson lawsuit, the station insists the reporters were fired for "unreasonable and intemperate behavior [which] did not advance [WTVT's] interests in providing quality news programming to its viewers." (It's worth noting, in the context of "quality news programming," that WTVT is owned by the Fox Network -- home to Rupert Murdoch, if-it-bleeds-it-leads local newscasts, and "When Animals Attack.") WTVT argues that the reporters' lawsuit is an unconstitutional assault on its editorial freedom, and the station's lawyers have recruited Don Heider, a former television reporter and currently a U.T.-Austin journalism professor, to testify as an expert witness on the station's behalf.
So what you get, in the lawsuit now pending before Florida's thirteenth judicial circuit court, are two stories for the price of one: the adulteration of the public food supply, and the adulteration of public information.
Jane Akre and Steve Wilson opened their recent Austin appearances by displaying a magazine ad photo of Donna Shalala, head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services -- complete with milk mustache, courtesy of "America's Dairy Farmers and Milk Processors." "How is it," asked Wilson, "that the person charged with regulating a product -- in this case with checking the safety of milk -- should get involved with advertising that product?" To the reporters, the Shalala photo (subsequently discontinued after public criticism) exemplifies the all too common duplicity of government "regulation" of industry. It may not be precisely the fox who is guarding the henhouse, but the fox certainly has very good friends in high places.
That was one of the major thrusts of "The Mystery in Your Milk," the series that Tampa viewers never saw: that when it came to Monsanto and its chemical wonders, the F.D.A., rather than act as an impartial defender of the public health, effectively collaborated with the company's determination to get its product on the market before it was demonstrated to be free of negative human health consequences. The major allegations of the series included the following:
This last item is particularly intriguing, because it puts the lie to a favorite argument of the corporate anti-regulation lobbyists: that informed consumers naturally regulate the free market by refusing to purchase products they don't want. Monsanto, with the help of the F.D.A., has done its best to ensure that consumers know as little as possible about the contents of the "free market's" most widely distributed dairy products. Not coincidentally, this was also the successful strategy of Monsanto's lawyers in its approach to the reports prepared by Akre and Wilson. Rather than defend its product clearly and succinctly on camera (as the reporters attempted to let the company do), on the eve of airdate Monsanto approached the station and its corporate parent, Fox, with thinly veiled threats of litigation if the network should broadcast the stories.
Actually, the threats weren't that veiled. On the Friday before the reports were scheduled for broadcast in February of 1997, Monsanto's New York law firm delivered a long, angry letter to Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes, denouncing Akre and Wilson as unqualified, biased, and engaging in "scaremongering" by associating rBGH in any way with human health risks, and specifically with cancer. "It is difficult to imagine a claim," wrote the corporate attorneys, "that could be more damaging to Monsanto, to its good name and reputation...." In response to the letter, station management temporarily held the story and re-reviewed it, deciding to go forward a week later, until a second letter from Monsanto's lawyer -- warning of "serious damage to Monsanto and dire consequences for Fox News" -- got the desired response. WTVT pulled the story, and then began a nine-month series of increasingly acrimonious "edits" (with the station undergoing a Fox-initiated management change in the meantime), ending in the December firing of Akre and Wilson.
As Akre and Wilson tell it, they cooperated with every attempt to revise the reports (even when they disliked the results) as long as they were not asked to misrepresent the facts as they knew them or to tell outright lies -- most specifically, to make an uncontroverted statement that there is "no difference" between hormone-treated and untreated milk. Twice, they say, they were offered large severance packages (nearly $200,000), but only on the condition they agree never to discuss in public the dispute nor the rBGH story, in any way. After they refused the offer a second time, they were fired. Wilson says the station manager was astounded at their refusal of the money. "I don't get you people," he says their manager told them. "What is the problem? All I want, are people who just want to be on TV." (The station denies Wilson's version of the events.)
The reporters insist that it was always within the authority of the station to kill the story outright, but that managers apparently didn't want to appear as though they had surrendered to Monsanto's external pressure. The station points to its subsequent broadcast of a version of the rBGH story, and insists that the courts cannot interfere with broadcasters' First Amendment freedoms from outside interference. The reporters answer that their lawsuit is not about the First Amendment at all. "This lawsuit," said Wilson, "is about whether a person can be fired for being ordered to do something that's illegal. They asked us to lie on the air. That's against the law -- the Communications Act and F.C.C. regulations. It comes down to whether it was an editorial dispute, or were they asking us to lie. The truth is, and the facts are, they were asking us to lie."
Akre and Wilson have received much public support, nationally and internationally, in their fight with the station, and in the wake of the dispute in 1998 received a special Award for Ethics from the Society of Professional Journalists (to the outrage of WTVT management). But at least one professional observer, U.T.'s Don Heider, remains unconvinced. Heider had ten years' experience in television news before moving to teaching. Asked by WTVT's lawyers to review the dispute and the various versions of the rBGH story, he agreed to act as an expert witness on behalf of the station. Although he's being paid for his work (a standard arrangement), Heider insists he accepted the case as a matter of principle: "I tell my students they have to stand up for what they believe, so I have to do the same."
Heider says he believes that the dispute is at bottom an editorial disagreement, and therefore news managers -- who, he emphasizes, are also journalists -- must be free to make editorial decisions free from outside interference. "There are other journalists involved in this story.... People with good reputations in the business. To look at it the other way -- that these reporters are getting screwed by the big company, I couldn't jump on that bandwagon."
In Heider's view, Monsanto's last-minute attempts to quash the story were unsurprising, and the threatening tone of the company's letters was simply "grandstanding." He says such letters from corporations are common in the news business, and these only served to "focus the attention" of the news directors. Heider insists the editors made a good-faith effort to get the story on the air, but that "trust broke down" almost immediately between the managers and the reporters, making it impossible to establish a good working relationship necessary to get the story done. "I really felt like from Fox's perspective," Heider told the Observer, "this was a question of, 'Where are we opening ourselves up to libel, and where are we not? And can we negotiate a set of scripts that satisfy the reporters and still get on the air?' I don't think that's unreasonable, I think that's the balance that mainstream news organizations have to walk every day."
Heider considers the eventually broadcast version of the story, produced by reporter Nathan Lang, as evidence that the Tampa station did not buckle to outside pressure. Akre and Wilson respond that the Lang version is a badly watered-down, incomplete, and fundamentally dishonest report that portrays Monsanto as a well-meaning corporate citizen and its opponents as scientifically unqualified extremists. Heider disagrees, insisting that while Lang "goes the extra mile to get Monsanto's viewpoint ... it's hard to say the viewer will feed good about BGH after seeing Lang's report." He calls the differences between the two versions largely "stylistic: the Akre and Wilson pieces are more investigative, with a harder edge, and Lang's are more scientific, or what I call explanatory." Akre and Wilson describe Lang's report as "false and misleading," and believe it was broadcast at least in part to provide the station with a legal defense. (The first segment ends with an anchorperson's dismissive reference to the reporters as "disgruntled former employees.") In legal documents, Akre and Wilson call the Lang report "a pretty clear picture of an attempt to make it appear the issue is being fairly and accurately covered while actually avoiding doing so."
Heider is clearly uncomfortable with being perceived as a defender of big corporate power, which he acknowledges has too big a commercial interest in mainstream news. "I think if you frame the story as Fox vs. Jane and Steve, that already puts a spin on the story. But if you think about it as a dispute between two reporters and station managers at a Fox-owned station, that's probably more accurate." Based primarily on his own experience in television news, he is convinced that neither Monsanto nor Fox forced the station to retreat on the story, and that a courtroom is no place to edit journalism. He admits to some sympathy for Akre and Wilson's position, but considers their lawsuit a poor tactic to attack corporate domination of the news. "I do worry about reporters and their ability to deal with tough stories. I don't think there's any doubt about that. But the F.C.C. has not been any great champion of reporters' rights. I question whether this is the way they're going to get those reporters' rights."
In Akre and Wilson's eyes, the lawsuit is not just about their rights as journalists, but about the future of journalism. "Television is not what it was even ten years ago in this country," Wilson told his Austin audience. "At one time, news was a sacrosanct public service. Now those people are dead and gone.... Big corporations are doing to the news business what they do to every other business. They are in business to make money. Their primary goal is, 'How much money can we make, and how fast can we make it?'
"News decisions are now based on money. When a story has the potential, as this one did, to prompt a lawsuit that might cost them two or three or four hundred thousand dollars to defend, or to upset the milk producers so they were going to pull all those nice moustache ads, or the grocers, because we were going to point out that they never kept their promises, and they might pull the grocery ads -- suddenly, the decision about what we're going to tell you about what's in your milk, is made based on what it's going to cost the station.... 'How are we going to get the most people to watch, charge the advertisers the highest rates we possibly can, keep everybody happy and make money?' This kind of story won't do that. This kind of story will make people mad."
Obviously the third time has not been the charm for attorneys from Fox Television and the large Washington, D.C., influence peddling law firm of Williams and Connolly.
Not only during their trial but twice since its conclusion Florida trial court Judge Ralph Steinberg has rejected the attorney's plea to set aside a jury verdict in favor of former Fox reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson who refused to lie or distort the truth about Monsanto's bovine growth hormone (rBGH).
In August, after listening to five full weeks of evidence and deliberating more than six hours, a six-person jury in state court agreed with fired journalists Wilson and Akre that Fox Television had pressured them to broadcast a false, distorted or slanted news report and awarded $425,000 in damages to Akre.
While believing that Fox took retaliatory personnel action against the former Tampa, Florida WTVT investigative reporter because she threatened to blow the whistle to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the jury did not find for Wilson, apparently because they concluded that Fox's decision not to renew his contract was not based solely on a threat to blow the whistle to the FCC. Wilson is currently appealing that decision. based on his claim of an erroneous jury instruction.
Fox is charging that Wilson's motion must be dismissed because it was not properly filed in a timely manner. Wilson believes that the jury was not able to find in his favor because they were wrongly instructed that in order to do so they must find the sole reason for his termination was his protected whistleblower activity. According to recent case law, Wilson argues that Fox's retaliation for his standing up for the BGH story need only be a "prevailing" or "substantive" reason for his dismissal, not the sole reason.
The husband-and-wife investigative team filed their suit after blowing the whistle on a story they say Fox-owned WTVT (Channel 13) and its corporate bosses preferred to coverup rather than broadcast honestly and accurately. The story, documented in their lawsuit, revealed the widespread use of the rBGH hormone Florida dairymen were secretly injecting into their cows.
Although approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1993, the artificial hormone has been linked to cancer and is banned throughout Europe and unapproved in several other countries because of human health concerns.
The reporters' never-broadcast report also revealed how Florida supermarkets quietly reneged on promises not to sell milk from treated cows until the hormone gained widespread acceptance by consumers. All major supermarkets now admit rBGH has found its way into virtually all of Florida's milk supply.
The reporters in their suit charged in detail Fox television, owned by Rupert Murdoch's multi-national News Corp ("News Corporation is the only vertically integrated media company on a global scale" -- 1997 Annual Report) under strong pressure from Monsanto, violated the reporters' contracts in dismissing them.
Filing the suit after struggling with Fox executives for most of 1997 to get the story on the air, Akre-Wilson submitted over 83 drafts of scripts all found "unacceptable" by the station. According to court papers, they were ultimately dismissed December 2, 1997.
"Every editor has the right to kill a story and any honest reporter will tell you that happens from time to time when a news organization's self interest wins out over the public interest," said Wilson, the station's former senior investigative reporter who helped Akre produce the story.
"But when media managers who are not journalists have so little regard for the public trust that they actually order reporters to broadcast false information and slant the truth to curry the favor or avoid the wrath of special interests as happened here, that is the day any responsible reporter has to stand up and say, 'No way!'That is what Jane and I said in this lawsuit," Wilson said.
According to Akre-Wilson, WTVT originally reviewed the investigative reports and scheduled them to air in four parts beginning Feb. 24, 1997, and had even launched an extensive radio ad campaign to draw attention to the series. But on the eve of the broadcast, the station pulled the reports after Monsanto hired renowned New York attorney John Walsh to complain to Fox News chief Roger Ailes, the former media adviser to Republican presidents Nixon, Reagan and Bush, on the eve of the broadcasts.
Local station management again carefully reviewed the investigative reports, found no errors in any of the reporting, rescheduled them to air a week later, and even offered Monsanto the opportunity to be interviewed a second time, according to the Akre-Wilson suit. Instead, Monsanto responded with another threatening letter, promising "dire consequences" to the Fox network if the report was aired. Again the WTVT reports were postponed.
In supporting papers filed with the court, the journalists say WTVT General Manager David Boylan refused to kill the story for fear the viewing public would learn that the station yielded to pressure from special interests. Instead, Wilson and Akre allege, Boylan ordered the reporters to broadcast a version which contained demonstrably false information and he threatened to fire them both within 48 hours if they refused.
In their suit Akre-Wilson relate that at one point Boylan told the reporters, "he wasn't interested" in looking at the story himself and pressured them to follow the company's lawyer's directions. Are you sure this is a hill you're willing to die on," he told them. Later, they claim, he stressed, "We paid $3 billion for these television stations. We will decide what the news is. The news is what we tell you it is."
Instead of being fired, the complaint continues, Boylan offered to release both reporters from further obligations and pay them full salary for the balance of their contracts if they would only agree never to discuss the rBGH story or how it was handled by the station. The reporters declined the offer.
What followed was nearly nine months of writing and rewriting the scripts more than 83 times, none of which suited Fox management according to their suit which says Boylan then suspended both reporters but ordered them to write two final versions while suspended.
In their defense appeals that have followed the trial Fox's chief defense attorney William McDaniels of the Washington firm Williams & Connolly claimed there were three basic reasons the judge should set aside the jury's unanimous verdict and Akre's $425,000 award.
[Williams and Connolly is the same law firm which recently represented Bill Clinton in his impeachment trial before the US Senate, unsuccessfully defended Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), after the "Supermarkup to the World," was indicted by the US Department of Justice for participating in a world-wide feed additive price fixing scheme, and represented the father of Cuba's Elian Gonzales in regaining custody of the child from his Florida relatives.]
First, McDaniels claims there is insufficient evidence to support the jury's finding that Fox acted deliberately to slant and distort news reports about Monsanto's rBGH. Second, the defense lawyer argues that there is insufficient evidence to support the damage award. He claims the only adverse personnel action which occurred after the journalists written complaint to Fox officials was a suspension period for which the reporters were ultimately paid. Third, McDaniels argues that the plaintiffs should never have been able to prevail in any event because technically there is no law, rule, or regulation against deliberate news distortion by a television station licensed to use the public airwaves.
During the course of the trial Green presidential candidate and consumer activist Ralph Nader pointed out to the jury that the FCC has become "all about exonerating broadcasters instead of holding them accountable." Fox unsuccessfully sought to bar Nader and Walter Cronkite from testifying on behalf of the plaintiffs.
A key element of Fox's defense strategy during the trial was that even if some of the editing instructions given by lawyers and managers at WTVT might have slanted the story on rBGH, the broadcasting company is protected by the First Amendment. The defendants also claimed there is no law, rule or regulation to prohibit such distortion.
Nader strongly disagreed with such logic. He cited an FCC case from 1969 when the commission said quite clearly that "rigging, slanting the news is a most heinous act against the public interest." While admitting the FCC has not investigated and prosecuted any such case, Nader said at one point, "We're dealing with an agency going to extremes not to enforce the Communications Act." It is that law, adopted in 1934 and implemented through FCC policy and actions, that requires all broadcasters to operate in the public interest.
Nader, a long and frequent critic of the FCC, added, "They haven't killed the public interest standard, but they certainly have anesthetized it!"
The Fox lawyer pressed Nader on his opposition to the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine, suggesting the FCC's policy against news slanting and distortion may have died with it. The doctrine was abolished during the Reagan administration to the delight of broadcasters who claimed a law which forced them to be fair actually stifled free speech. "That claim was an observation so preposterous it hardly deserves any rebuttal," Nader said.
Acknowledging for the first time, in their recent appeal, that the "no-law-against-lying" argument poses a public relations nightmare for a news organization, McDaniels said, "WTVT is not saying a licensee is free to falsify the news. That's not the issue," he claimed. He said no Fox station would ever do such a thing.
Curiously, however, Fox continues to pursue its rationalization that it has not broadcast false, distorted or slanted news. Within hours of the verdict the station was claiming a victory in the Akre-Wilson trial. Jane Akre recalls:
"On the station's 6 o'clock news which I watched with my lawyers at their office, we all commented on how accurately and fairly they reported the news. Anchorwoman Kelly Ring said quite clearly, '... the jury found the station violated the state whistleblower law when they fired [Akre].' But the the time the 10 o'clock news hit the air, it was a different story. Fox lawyers and public relations wizards had time to get it spinning like a top.
"By 10:31 p.m. when the station buried the story in the late news, the report was that WTVT was 'completely vindicated.' A Fox attorney from Los Angeles was seen telling viewers the jury's decision 'does not have to do with distortion of the news.' HUH!!? The station's guilty verdict on the whistleblower count means exactly that, no matter how fast you spin it.
"I am still trying to understand," Akre observes, "how a station just found guilty of distorting the news could have the unmitigated gall to do it again in reporting their loss. Do these high-paid lawyers really not understand the verdict, or are they slanting the news, again, for their own gain?"
Meanwhile, the nearly complete blackout of the Akre-Wilson trial by the national media (as well as by the local Florida media), which has become little more than a corporate apologist, was of itself a national scandal and disgrace. But, at the same time, the at best tepid support offered the two journalists by the nation's so-called liberal/progressive community, particularly farm, food, health and environmental groups and organizations, has certainly not been one of its proudest moments.
It was indeed an indictment on the liberal/progressive alternative media that Akre and Wilson had to resort to covering their own trial for lack of coverage not only by the mainstream media, but by the liberal/progressive alternative media as well.
One wonders where all the alternative press Woodward-and-Bernstein wannabees that overran Seattle during last November's World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting with their reports and commentary ad nauseam were less than a year later instead of being in Tampa, Fla.
Likewise, the seeming unwillingness of the liberal/progressive community to make the issues at stake in the Akre/Wilson vs Fox Television case a focal point of local and national public attention calls into serious question its basic priorities.
It is all well and good, as many liberal/progressive groups are currently doing, to raise the serious questions that need to be raised about the genetic engineering of our food supply, but attempts to be on the cutting edge of an issue should not limit such individuals and groups to the fact that there are other relevant issues at stake in battling such corporate power as has been exercised by Fox in the Akre-Wilson case.
Freedom of speech, the integrity of the news that is broadcast over the public airwaves, the safety of our food, the ability of reporters to tell stories that are free from the dictates of corporate coercion and a deliberate slanting of the news by those same corporations and media managers, are all not only issues vitally important to Americans, but to the future of democracy itself.
Complete details of the Akre-Wilson suit and reports on their trial are presented at a special Internet web site they have established and which can be viewed at www.foxbghsuit.com
A.V. Krebs operates the Corporate Agribusiness Research Project, P.O. Box 2201, Everett, Washington 98203-0201; email avkrebs@earthlink.net; website www.ea1.com/CARP/
BGH Reporters Receive Top Journalism
Award For Standing Up For The Truth
foxBGHsuit.com
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LOS ANGELES (October 24, 1998) – Former Fox Television investigative reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson have received one of the top honors in journalism for standing up to their managers and station lawyers when they say they were ordered to broadcast false and misleading news reports. The national Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) presented the husband-and-wife team its Award for Ethics at the group’s annual conference Saturday in Los Angeles. It was only the fourth time the group has bestowed such an ethics honor in its 89-year history. In presenting the honor, SPJ President Fred Brown said the award recognizes those individuals who, through their actions and decisions, provide a role model for all journalists. (Jane and Steve) actually lost their jobs for refusing to incorporate false information into an investigative story about bovine growth hormone," Brown said, "and then waged a post-employment campaign to make sure the record was set straight in the case." The two received a standing ovation in the cavernous hotel ballroom packed with journalists from around the country. Akre and Wilson were both fired by Fox-owned Channel 13 in Tampa just before Christmas of last year. They filed a lawsuit April 2, claiming they were dismissed for refusing to following orders to broadcast what they knew and documented to be false and misleading reports about the presence of a potentially deadly hormone they discovered in the milk supply throughout Florida and elsewhere. The journalists have charged Fox managers and lawyers ordered them to lie and slant their reports in wake of two threatening letters from a lawyer representing the Monsanto company which makes the hormone in question. Their state court whistleblower complaint details how Monsanto directed its strong-arm pressure to kill or influence the story to Fox News chief Roger Ailes. He reportedly passed it along to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Television Stations division which owns and operates Channel 13. "We are both humbled and heartened by this unexpected honor," says Akre. Her co-plaintiff Steve Wilson added, "A WTVT producer testified under oath in a deposition just last week that Jane and I now have terrible reputations at the station where we devoted a year of our lives to try and tell an honest story people have a right to hear. Her testimony was especially troubling in light of the fact neither of us ever worked with this woman and, in fact, we essentially worked alone and could never get our best work on the air without misleading the viewers, which we refused to do. "Our lawsuit was never about a simple employment dispute, as some local journalists seem inclined to believe without taking the time to really look into the facts," Wilson said. "As proud as we are to receive this award, its real significance is that our peers at SPJ reviewed the situation on their own and saw the issue the same as we: to what extent can viewers and readers be served if journalists anywhere start giving into pressure to falsify or slant their reports?" he concluded. Wilson and Akre are also in the process of preparing a formal complain to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) asking for a full and complete investigation into the character of a licensee who would order journalists to use the public airwaves to present news reports known to be false or slanted. The 13,500-member SPJ represents journalists throughout America and is dedicated to encouraging the free practice of journalism, stimulating high standards of ethical behavior, and perpetuating a free press. Respected Washington Post columnist David Broder also received an ethics award at the conference. He was cited for lifetime achievement. |
Well here's a howdy-do. TV station in Florida prepares hard-hitting series questioning safety of grocery-store milk. Large biotech company threatens station with libel suit. Station cancels broadcast, orders reporters to rewrite series. Reporters refuse. Station fires reporters. Reporters sue station.
It's easy to post one of two well-worn headlines over this story -- CORPORATION AND MEDIA CONSPIRE TO HIDE TAINTED MILK FROM PUBLIC or PIT-BULL REPORTERS DISTORT EVIDENCE TO PANIC CONSUMERS. Having talked with the protagonists on both sides, I'm unwilling to jump to either conclusion. I'm reminded of a Jane Austin novel where the plot thickens and no character is flawless -- but the language being used lacks Jane Austin's gentility.
"Some of the points clearly contain elements of defamatory statements which, if repeated in a broadcast, could lead to serious damage to Monsanto and dire consequences for Fox News."
"We paid $3 billion for these television stations. We will decide what the news is. The news is what we tell you it is."
Monsanto has put years and millions into a hormone, which, when injected every two weeks into a cow can raise her milk production by 10-20 percent. Posilac is the trade name; it is also called rBGH (for bovine growth hormone) and rBST (for bovine somatotropin, a name Monsanto made up, critics say, to avoid negative associations with hormones). The "r" stands for "recombinant," because the hormone is produced in vats by bacteria into which a cow gene has been transplanted. The genetic engineering is in the bacteria, not the cows, not the milk.
All along the company has met with resistance to this product. Some people hate the very idea of tinkering with genes. Some are worried about artificially cranking up the metabolism of the cow. (The program quotes a taunt used by critics, "crack for cows," but that is not a good metaphor; rBGH is more like the steroids that Olympic athletes are not allowed to use.) Some say the last thing the glutted U.S. market needs is more milk -- this product does nothing for the consumer, it just helps some farmers beat out other farmers in a cutthroat competition. But the hot-button concern from a marketing point of view is the fear that milk from hormone-injected cows may be harmful to human health.
The squashed series, made by reporters Steve Wilson and Jane Akre for Fox-owned WTVT in Tampa, hits that concern hard. It does quote a Monsanto spokesman who cites the long approval process Posilac had to go through and the assurance of regulators that rBGH-produced milk is indistinguishable from any other. But it quotes rBGH skeptics harder and longer, and, as is typical in TV reporting, one has no idea whether they are representative scientists or a few selected cranks.
Wilson and Akre do document unsettling facts about corporate heavy-handedness, suppressed data, even an attempted bribe of regulatory officials in Canada. (Monsanto claims it was an offer of "research support;" a Canadian official on camera calls it a bribe.) The company does speak in weasel words. ("Every scientific, medical or regulatory body in the world which has reviewed and approved this product has come to the same conclusion: milk from rBST treated cows poses no risk to human health." No mention of the fact that regulatory bodies in Canada, New Zealand, and the European Union, have reviewed and not approved the product.)
The series shows clearly that Florida supermarkets claiming to have rBGH-free milk have taken no steps to assure that result. Monsanto says the claim would be impossible to test, because there is no difference in the milk. But Monsanto's own numbers show elevated hormone levels in rBGH-treated milk, and when I ask about the statistics, I get surprisingly devious answers. I have to conclude that this company has invested so much into its product that it can't see or tell the full truth, even if it wants to.
On the other hand, the reporters, though they've done a lot of research and exposed significant corporate sloppiness, make rBGH-treated milk sound much too ominous. They harp on a possible link with cancer, for instance, which is a long way from proved (or disproved). The WTVT lawyers, scared by a threatening letter from Monsanto's lawyers, went too far in the other direction, however, when they ordered the word "cancer" cut out throughout the series and replaced with "adverse human health effects."
What deeply disturbs me about this story has nothing to do with milk. It has to do with consumers getting straight information. A series on rBGH could have been properly cautionary, but this one was overdramatic, designed to pull in viewers during "sweeps week." On the other hand, it is chilling to know how easily a big company can squelch information. Just two tough-sounding letters and the show is canceled.
It would be nice to live in a world where we could trust the assurances of large corporations, trust public regulators, trust what we see on TV -- but such a world seems increasingly remote. As to trusting the milk supply, I don't think rBGH-treated milk will give us cancer, though I don't know for sure, nor does Monsanto, nor do those hotshot TV producers. Personally I don't want to find out by participating in an experiment conducted upon a poorly informed public, nor am I interested in revving up cows or hooking farmers on an unnecessary product.
Fortunately I do trust a local dairy that does not use rBGH.
(Details on this story, including the TV script before and after editing, can be found at www.foxbghsuit.com. Monsanto's website on Posilac is at www.monsanto.com/protiva/.)
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In late 1996, journalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson began investigating rBGH, the genetically modified growth hormone American dairies have been injecting into their cows. As investigative reporters for the Fox Television affiliate in Tampa, Florida, they discovered that while the hormone had been banned in Canada, Europe and most other countries, millions of Americans were unknowingly drinking milk from rBGH-treated cows.
The duo documented how the hormone, which can harm cows, was approved by the government as a veterinary drug without adequately testing its effects on children and adults who drink rBGH milk. They also uncovered studies linking its effects to cancer in humans. Just before broadcast, the station cancelled the widely promoted reports after Monsanto, the hormone manufacturer, threatened Fox News with "dire consequences" if the stories aired. Under pressure from Fox lawyers, the husband-and-wife team rewrote the story more than 80 times.
After threats of dismissal and offers of six-figure sums to drop their ethical objections and keep quiet, they were fired in December 1997. In 1998, Akre won a suit against Fox for violating Florida’s Whistleblower Law, which makes it illegal to retaliate against a worker who threatens to reveal employer misconduct. They must now defend the $425,000 award to Akre through the appeals process. Meanwhile, with their assets drained, neither has been able to work full-time in television news. They recently formed a production company to expose environmental and health news that is increasingly ignored by mainstream media.
source: http://www.goldmanprize.org/recipients/recipientProfile.cfm?recipientID=106
PROJECT CENSORED
JUDGE DENIES FOX TELEVISON'S
EFFORTS TO MAKE AKRE-WILSON
PAY $2 MILLION COURT COSTS
THE
AGRIBUSINESS
EXAMINER
August 23, 2004, Issue #367
Monitoring Corporate Agribusiness
>From a Public Interest Perspective
EDITOR\PUBLISHER; A.V. Krebs
E-MAIL: avkrebs@earthlink.net
WEB SITE: http://www.ea1.com/CARP/
TO RECEIVE: Send name and address
JUDGE DENIES FOX TELEVISON'S
EFFORTS TO MAKE AKRE-WILSON
PAY $2 MILLION COURT COSTS
FOXBGH SUIT: A Florida judge has denied a FOX Television motion that
would have forced its former investigative reporters Jane Akre and Steve
Wilson to pay nearly $2 million in legal fees and court costs the
broadcaster spent to defend itself at trial in the landmark
whistleblower suit brought by the journalists.
In her ruling which followed a lengthy hearing in Tampa Wednesday
(August 18), Judge Vivian Maye cited previous court decisions that allow
judicial discretion in deciding whether whistleblowers must reimburse
defense costs if they ultimately lose.
Still at issue are some additional court costs that FOX says it is
entitled to collect from the journalists under different rules that
apply at the appellate level. FOX took the case there and ultimately
overturned the jury on a legal technicality last year.
(There, the party that ultimately wins is generally allowed to collect
appellate costs and fees from the losing party.)
Ironically, the ruling came four years to the very day and exact hour
that a jury returned its landmark ruling in the case and a $425,000
award to reporter Jane Akre.
This latest decision stems from a case filed in 1998 by former FOX
journalists Akre and Wilson who charged they were pressured to broadcast
what they knew and documented to be lies about an artificial hormone
injected into dairy cows, then fired when they refused and threatened to
report the matter to the Federal Communications Commission.
After a five-week trial in 2000, a jury decided unanimously that Akre
was fired solely because she threatened to blow the whistle to the FCC
the broadcast of a false, distorted or slanted news report. The panel
that found in Akre's favor awarded nothing to Wilsonwho represented
himself at trial.
The FOX appeal was largely on an argument that it is not technically
illegal for a broadcaster to deliberately distort the news on
television. The appellate justices reasoned that since state law
provides whistleblower protection only for employees who object to
misconduct which is against an "adopted law, rule, orregulation" and
they decided prohibitions against news distortion are merely a "policy"
of the FCC, the reporters' eight-year-old lawsuit must have been without
merit from its
inception.
"The appellate judges were wrong to overturn the jury on the notion that
it's not illegal for a broadcaster to lie in a television news report,"
Akre said.
"And what's even more shameful is that a broadcaster would argue that
the First Amendment is broad enough to protect outright lies and
deliberate distortion," Wilson added. "Remember this case the next time
you hear `fair and balanced,' or `we report, you decide'."
In her ruling yesterday, Judge Maye noted, "Three different trial court
judges believed this case had legal merit." Six times before FOX
appealed its loss, those judges rejected that very same argument,
deciding prohibitions against deliberate distortion of the news on the
public airwaves was more than a mere violation of government policy.
Reading from the Jury Verdict Form, she also noted that six
disinterested jurors decided Fox fired Akre for no other reason than her
objection to airing a report the jurors agreed was "false, distorted, or
slanted."
Ironically, the decision came exactly four years to the day --- and
virtually to the very hour --- that a jury returned a favorable verdict
and $425,000 award for one of the reporters.
The journalists, who have already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars
on their own costs and fees as plaintiffs, are not entirely off the hook
for paying at least some of FOX's expenses. The broadcaster told the
court it was seeking to recover only part of its total defense costs
which is believed to be well over $3 million.
The appeals court which affirmed Wilson's loss at trial has ordered him
to reimburse what Fox spent on court costs and attorneys' fees at the
appellate level. FOX says that amount is about $130,000 but the exact
amount of any eventual judgment must be determined by the trial court
judge following review by a court-ordered mediator.
In Akre's case, the appeal court justices ruled last February that she
was not liable for what Fox paid its attorneys to handle the appeal
because she was defending a trial court victory. That decision still
left her subject to pay FOX's appellate court
costs and, accordingly, Judge Maye entered an order that FOX is entitled
to collect from her its $156 filing fee and $18,256 in premiums for the
bond the broadcaster posted to insure payment of the jury verdict if it
had been upheld.
Still at issue is an additional $43,747 FOX wants to collect for the
cost of a second copy of the trial transcript the broadcaster needed for
its appeal. FOX paid at least that much for an original copy on a
day-to-day basis as the trial continued but now argue it was forced to
buy the second copy because its attorneys were told the "dailies" could
not be used in the appeal.
Thomas Johnson, representing Akre and Wilson, contested the charge. He
told Judge Maye that the court's chief clerk has said there has never
been a requirement that daily transcripts were insufficient for purposes
of pursing an appeal, suggesting FOX's purchase of the second set was an
unnecessary burden that should not
be placed on the reporters.
The judge gave each side ten days to file a formal response on that
issue before she makes a ruling.
FOX could appeal Judge Maye's decision back to the Second District Court
of Appeal but would need to provide a compelling argument that Judge
Maye somehow abused her discretion in deciding not to award trial court
fees and costs to the defendant.
To see the Akre/Wilson Web Site and read altered and unaltered versions of the scripts (used as evidence at the trial), go to http://www.foxbghsuit.com/
"As
a mother and a journalist, I know we all have the right to information
to help us make important decisions about what we pour on our children's
cereal each morning. All journalists have a duty to shed light on
important issues in the public interest, even when that information runs
counter to governments and industry who would rather operate in their
own self interest."