Fired Fox reporters want to deny Tampa station renewal license

[rainbow4321]

http://kcindymedia.org/newswire/display/2005/index.php


TAMPA (January 3, 2005)-For what is believed to be the first time
ever, two television journalists have challenged the broadcast license of a station on grounds it deliberately broadcast false and distorted news reports.

Veteran reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson filed the petition
Monday against WTVT Fox-13 in Tampa, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's Fox
Television empire.

<snip>

The formal Petition To Deny the station's pending license renewal
presents the Federal Communications Commission with 98 pages of what the journalists say is "clear and convincing support for the claim that the licensee is not operating in the public interest and lacks the good character to do so."

<snip>

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 then overturned in
2003 when an appeals 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.

[Cocoa]

1. I love this story

a news organization going to court to assert its right to distort the news.

[Vincardog]

2. is not technically against any law, rule, or regulation for a broadcaster

:wtf: why not?

[AllegroRondo]

3. I would think Fraud charges could apply

but only if you could prove you were injured in some way by the distorted news.

[imax2268]

4. well...

if they do get their liscense renewed...I think because of this story...some will doubt the stations credibility from now on...especially if it's proven that they were in fact making distorted news stories...

[Liberal In Texas]

5. 1st Amendment

[unblock]

6. freedom of speech

the really interesting aspect comes in the subtle constitutional difference between freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

the press is mentioned specifically in the first amendment, and therefore arguably has a stronger claim to protected speech than does the mere entertainer.

so the question is, when fox argued that they have the right to distort the news, did they acknowledge that they are not a news source but merely an entertainment source (as limbaugh always claims)? and, by doing so, did they give up certain rights?

this could come into play in this case for a broadcast license. presumably an entertainment source would be a lower priority for the granting/renewal of a license than a news source.

[cruadin]

7. I kind of got tripped up on that sentence also......

"is not technically against any law, rule, or regulation for a broadcaster to distort the news"....

How can that not be against the law?
Wouldn't it come under fraud, libel or slander statutes to disseminate false information?

[rainbow4321]

8. Another article...4 yrs ago another ex- Fox reporter complained:

http://kcindymedia.org/newswire/display/2010/index.php


The Fox News Network < Violating the Public Trust I
Village Voice
Published November 22 - 28, 2000

Fox calls itself "fair and balanced," but on the night of November 7, Fox election man John Ellis talked on the phone with cousins Jeb and Dubya Bush, then called Florida for Dubya around 2 a.m. A week later, Ellis's actions were reported in The New Yorker, whereupon he was accused of a conflict of interest and releasing confidential polling data. Ellis denied doing anything unethical, but the perception of bias touched a raw nerve at Fox.

<snip>

If bias is inevitable, what's to stop the reporters and businesses who control the airwaves from slanting the news to serve their mutual self-interest? "The election coverage is a microcosm
of everything wrong with American journalists," says Brian Karem, a former investigative reporter for Fox TV affiliate WDAF in Kansas City and, more recently, author of Spin Control. "Instead of being disinterested observers, we're right there in the thick of it with those in power. It's all one big, happy club."

Karem quit WDAF in 1998, after the station "watered down" his exposé on Dursban, a pesticide made by the Dow Chemical Company. Based on his experience, Karem believes Fox is partial to big business. "It's incredible that they think of themselves as a news organization," he says. "They slant the news and they do it their way. Rupert's never been objective about anything in his life. The only thing he respects is the almighty dollar sign."

<snip>
"Every news journalist has a bias," counters a Fox spokesperson. "The
trick is not to allow that bias to creep into what's being presented on the screen."