The Political Whore

Couch potatoes unite!

• The mother of the St. Pete courthouse gunman blames shootout on “antigovernment Web sites.”
• Clinton’s five big boo boos …
• … and her three options.
• Bush mucks with the FCC to help out his old buddy/election law-flouter John McCain.
• Toyota feels the sting of the U.S. economic slowdown.
• The high price of intelligence.
• The Olympic torch makes it to the protester-free summit of Mt. Everest.
• No GTA IV in India. Reason: a global shortage.

Bookmark It

This is just in from our senior editor in Atlanta, John Sugg, who has followed the Steve Wilson-Fox 13 saga since his days here at CL in Tampa:

The Federal Communications Commission has ended one of the most bitter and protracted media disputes in the Tampa Bay area. In a July 23 ruling, the FCC found that Fox 13, WTVT did not distort news about a milk additive. Two reporters sought to have the FCC revoke WTVT’s license, claiming they were fired from the station after management caved into threats from the additive’s manufacturer, Monsanto.

The reporters – a husband-wife team, Steve Wilson and Jane Akre – had been hired by WTVT in 1997. Just about their only work for the station consisted of an investigation into the Monsanto additive, a growth hormone called rBGH. The station insisted in presenting both sides of the dispute – there is considerable scientific debate over rBGH, and the federal Food and Drug Administration approved its use in 1993. Wilson and Akre claimed only their anti-rBGH sources were truthful and that the station, in allowing Monsanto to respond to allegations, distorted the truth.

Within a year, the relationship between the station and the reporters had disintegrated and their contracts weren’t renewed. They sued WTVT in May 1998. In a 2000 trial, Wilson lost on all counts. Akre won a limited verdict, but the Second District Court of Appeal in Lakeland overturned that, ruling the reporters’ case had “no merit from its inception.” The final denouement of the legal case came in 2005, when Wilson paid WTVT $156,000 for legal expenses.

Station management and employees – as well as my reporting in Creative Loafing – contend the duo manufactured the dispute in order to capitalize potential book and movies deals (they have prominent roles in the 2004 documentary, The Corporation) by becoming media martyrs.

(more…)

Bookmark It