Post by Moses on Jan 5, 2005 3:18:49 GMT -5
tampabay.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2005/01/03/daily9.html
4:52 PM EST Monday
Journalists petition FCC to challenge Fox-13 license renewal
Alexis Muellner
Two TV journalists have challenged the broadcast license renewal of WTVT Fox-13 asserting it deliberately broadcast false and distorted news reports.
Reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson filed the petition Monday against the Tampa station, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's Fox Television conglomerate.
The 98-page petition to deny the station's pending license renewal presents the Federal Communications Commission with support for the claim that the licensee is not operating in the public interest and "lacks the good character to do so."
The challenge stems from what the reporters describe as a year-long experience working at the station where they resisted their managers who, they allege, repeatedly ordered them to distort a series of news reports about the secret use of an artificial hormone injected in dairy cattle throughout Florida and nationally.
The petition also charges WTVT violated federal rules about keeping viewer complaints and comments on file. The reporters say no communication regarding the dispute over the hormone story was found in the files even though there were several examples of letters that should have been there, they said.
"The public interest is by law the primary obligation of every broadcaster who uses our public airwaves to make their corporate fortune, especially when broadcasting the news," said Akre in a release.
The station received the petition and is preparing a timely response, said GM Bob Linger. He expects the station to be fully vindicated, he said, declining further comment.
The reporters charge in a release distributed Monday that station executives demanded the reports be falsified and slanted to avoid a threatened lawsuit by the hormone maker Monsanto, as well as potential loss of advertising from the dairy industry and others who objected to the reports.
The two reporters were fired after, they say, they refused to yield to management threats of dismissal.
Fox officials never pointed to a single inaccuracy in the proposed broadcasts, they say.
In 1998, the two filed a civil court lawsuit seeking employee protections under the state Whistleblower Act that resulted in a $425,000 jury award to Akre.
That verdict was overturned in 2003 when an appellate court accepted Fox's defense that since it is not technically against any law, rule or regulation for a broadcaster to distort the news, the journalists were never entitled to employee protections as whistleblowers in the first place.
The reporters are not seeking to retry their whistleblower case at the FCC, they say in the petition.
Instead, they are attempting to bring "the facts of Fox misconduct to the attention of a federal regulatory agency that long ago promised it would act to protect the public interest against broadcasters who twist the truth in news reports," Akre said in a prepared statement.
The petition was made regarding licensee New World Communications of Tampa.
It seeks a full and thorough investigation by the FCC followed by public hearings on the matter before any determination is made to renew WTVT's license to operate the station for the next eight years.
4:52 PM EST Monday
Journalists petition FCC to challenge Fox-13 license renewal
Alexis Muellner
Two TV journalists have challenged the broadcast license renewal of WTVT Fox-13 asserting it deliberately broadcast false and distorted news reports.
Reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson filed the petition Monday against the Tampa station, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's Fox Television conglomerate.
The 98-page petition to deny the station's pending license renewal presents the Federal Communications Commission with support for the claim that the licensee is not operating in the public interest and "lacks the good character to do so."
The challenge stems from what the reporters describe as a year-long experience working at the station where they resisted their managers who, they allege, repeatedly ordered them to distort a series of news reports about the secret use of an artificial hormone injected in dairy cattle throughout Florida and nationally.
The petition also charges WTVT violated federal rules about keeping viewer complaints and comments on file. The reporters say no communication regarding the dispute over the hormone story was found in the files even though there were several examples of letters that should have been there, they said.
"The public interest is by law the primary obligation of every broadcaster who uses our public airwaves to make their corporate fortune, especially when broadcasting the news," said Akre in a release.
The station received the petition and is preparing a timely response, said GM Bob Linger. He expects the station to be fully vindicated, he said, declining further comment.
The reporters charge in a release distributed Monday that station executives demanded the reports be falsified and slanted to avoid a threatened lawsuit by the hormone maker Monsanto, as well as potential loss of advertising from the dairy industry and others who objected to the reports.
The two reporters were fired after, they say, they refused to yield to management threats of dismissal.
Fox officials never pointed to a single inaccuracy in the proposed broadcasts, they say.
In 1998, the two filed a civil court lawsuit seeking employee protections under the state Whistleblower Act that resulted in a $425,000 jury award to Akre.
That verdict was overturned in 2003 when an appellate court accepted Fox's defense that since it is not technically against any law, rule or regulation for a broadcaster to distort the news, the journalists were never entitled to employee protections as whistleblowers in the first place.
The reporters are not seeking to retry their whistleblower case at the FCC, they say in the petition.
Instead, they are attempting to bring "the facts of Fox misconduct to the attention of a federal regulatory agency that long ago promised it would act to protect the public interest against broadcasters who twist the truth in news reports," Akre said in a prepared statement.
The petition was made regarding licensee New World Communications of Tampa.
It seeks a full and thorough investigation by the FCC followed by public hearings on the matter before any determination is made to renew WTVT's license to operate the station for the next eight years.