Fw: Reporters Ordered to LIE about MILK .

[Guest guest]

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Laurelee Blanchard <laurelee

Wednesday, July 19, 2000 11:58 AM

Reporters ordered to lie about milk

 

 

For immediate release

July 14, 2000

 

Ralph Nader, Walter Cronkite On Witness List

Fired Journalists Stand Up To Media Empire;

Whistleblower Case Is First Of Its Kind

 

While an increasing number of Americans suspect mainstream news

organizations sometimes twist the news, two veteran investigative

journalists say they are ready to prove in court how Fox television

managers and lawyers at WTVT Fox 13 in Tampa ordered them to

deliberately distort news reports and then fired them for resisting

those directives.

 

The landmark whistleblower lawsuit is believed to be the first time

any journalist has ever filed a claim against his own news organization

and offered evidence of behind-the-scenes manipulation of the news.

 

When the trial begins next Monday, reporters Jane Akre (pronounced

A'-cree) and Steve Wilson say they will show exactly how Fox hired them

and advertised their reputations for hard-hitting investigations but then

folded and pressured them to slant a story in favor of an advertiser who

threatened " dire consequences " if their reports were broadcast.

 

CBS journalist Walter Cronkite and public interest advocate Ralph

Nader are both on the plaintiffs' witness list, despite efforts by Fox

attorneys who desperately sought to block their testimony.

 

The trial will pit the two fired journalists with Wilson representing

himself for more than two years in an effort to save money on legal fees,

and Akre represented by a small Tampa firm-against the powerful

Washington law firm of Williams & Connolly, the same lawyers

who represent President Bill Clinton personally.

To get their day in court, the plaintiffs have sold their home,

spent their life savings battling the media giant, and

say they have been branded as media traitors never likely to

get another good job in the business again.

 

To the amazement of most legal observers, the reporters paved their

way to court by defeating three Fox motions to summarily dismiss the case

without a trial. Those victories were engineered by Akre's legal team led

by John Chamblee and Tom Johnson.

 

At the heart of the dispute is a series of reports produced by Akre

and Wilson revealing the widespread and virtually secret use of a

synthetic hormone being injected into dairy cows throughout Florida and

much of the U.S. The hormone causes cows to produce more milk.

 

The investigative reports that Fox abruptly pulled from its schedule

in early 1997 would have revealed that without the consent or approval of

milk drinkers and those who serve it daily to their children, use of the

synthetic hormone has altered what used to be called nature's most nearly

perfect food.

 

The stories would have also disclosed for the first time that leading

grocers now admit they quietly broke their 1994 promises not to buy milk

>from hormone-injected cows until the practice achieved widespread

acceptance. Surveys have shown that the vast majority of consumers do

not want artificial hormones in their milk and would avoid such milk if it

were labeled. No dairy anywhere is known to label its milk as coming from

cows injected with artificial hormones.

 

Although legal in America, the artificial bovine growth hormone

(rBGH) has been banned in Canada, throughout Europe,

and elsewhere due in large part to concern about health

risks for milk drinkers. One of the chief concerns is that while

the growth hormones do cause the cows to produce

more milk, the milk is changed in a way that could promote breast,

colon and prostate cancer.

 

" In wake of the two written threats1,2 from Monsanto to Fox News

chief Roger Ailes, we were asked to put Fox's interest in its own bottom

line ahead of the public interest, " said plaintiff Steve Wilson. Monsanto

is the multi-national chemical company that makes the genetically

engineered hormone.

 

" When the president of Fox Television Stations saw those threats,

that executive who controls more television stations than anyone in

America simply ordered his lawyers to 'take no risks' with the story. "

Wilson said. The executive's directive has been confirmed in sworn

testimony from two Fox attorneys3,4 in the written notes of one them.5

 

" And we have also discovered, in another handwritten note of one of

the broadcaster's attorneys, that if they tried to kill the story and word

leaked out, it would be a major p-r problem for Fox' " said co-plaintiff

Akre. " So they decided to eliminate their risk by pressuring us to

placate Monsanto and essentially lie to the public. No decent journalist

can ever do that. "

 

The reporters will testify that Fox managers first threatened to fire

them for insubordination, then offered them a six-figure deal to entice

them to go along. When the pair refused, they say they were strung along

for months re-writing the story 83 times in an effort to get it on the air

before being suspended, locked out, and ultimately fired by Fox for what

the broadcasting company claimed was " no cause. "

 

The reporters will not be able to tell the jury about a second deal

Fox offered to pay each reporter a whole year's salary for no-show jobs as

" news consultants " in exchange for their leaving quietly and never

disclosing to anyone what they learned regarding the milk or the quality

of Fox journalism. The trial court ruled that the second six-figure deal

was actually made to try and avoid a lawsuit. To encourage out-of-court

settlements, such offers cannot be admitted into evidence when disputes

cannot be settled without a trial.

 

The issue has drawn world-wide attention as a result of a website the

journalists posted the day their lawsuit was filed. The reporters, who

happen to be married to each other, have also traveled far and wide to

accept invitations to speak about genetically engineered milk and their

experiences with Fox. They have vowed not to personally benefit from

their efforts to publicize the story Fox refused to tell.

 

Many of the documents from the suit are posted on the World Wide Web

at

http://www.foxBGHsuit.com

 

For further information or to arrange interviews:

 

Jane Akre or Steve Wilson (727) 796-6504 or wilson

John Chamblee or Tom Johnson, Akre's Attorneys (813) 251-4542

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