The Political Whore

Check me out as I talk about the politics of health care reform today at 12:30 on Your Turn with Kathy Fountain on Fox 13.

Further reading from the .PDF Library:

white_house_forum_on_health_reform_report

Hidden Costs

Rhodes, after a deputy beat the snot out of him shoved him to the ground during his arrest.

On his return to the air weeks after his arrest.

From the St. Petersburg Times:

Rhodes, 50, was supposed to be tried today on charges tied to his Jan. 16 arrest. But the trial was continued until Wednesday because his attorney was awaiting transcripts from a previous hearing.

Now, instead of going to trial, Rhodes will plead no contest on Wednesday to a misdemeanor obstruction charge, defense attorney Jeff Brown said.

As part of the plea deal, Rhodes will serve 50 hours of community service. Adjudication will be withheld, meaning he will not have a conviction on his record.

I will be joining a panel discussing the accomplishments/lack thereof in the 2009 Florida Legislature on Fox 13’s Your Turn show with Kathy Fountain. Phone or e-mail your questions in, yourturn@wtvt.com or call 813-875-8255 or 800-826-4434 (according to the Fox website.)

Russell Rhodes bore no evidence of the face-smashing he took from an off-duty Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputy back in January when he made his first post-arrest appearance on Fox 13 this morning.

Rhodes made a brief apology for his “off-air” behavior, a Times blog reported, before resuming a normal broadcast.

“First up, I want to apologize for my recent off-air behavior,” Rhodes told his audience.

Russell Rhodes, as he looked this morning on his first return to Good Day Tampa Bay

A post-arrest Rhodes

Talking about the last week of the campaigns and what will happen in the election for president today on Fox 13’s Your Turn show with Kathy Fountain. Phone or e-mail your questions in, yourturn@wtvt.com or call 813-875-8255 or 800-826-4434 (according to the Fox website.)

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.

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