http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/fox.htmlMonsanto and Fox TV Unite
to Suppress Journalists' Free Speech
on Hazards of Genetically Engineered
Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH or rBST)On April 2, 1998, two award-winning Florida TV producers, Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, held press conferences in Tampa and Tallahassee to announce a lawsuit against a Fox TV network television station, WTVT. The reporters sued Fox for firing them after they refused to broadcast false reports about Monsanto's controversial genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH or rBST). Akre and Wilson were fired after a year-long battle over a TV news feature series they produced which highlighted the public health dangers of Monsanto's rBGH (increased antibiotic residues, increased levels of a potent human growth hormone factor called IGF-1, linked to the promotion of cancer tumors). Shortly before the original TV series was to run, an attorney from Monsanto contacted Fox TV and demanded that the script be altered. The station gave in to Monsanto's demands and told Akre and Wilson to rewrite and tone down the script. One year and 73 rewrites later Monsanto still wasn't satisfied and Akre and Wilson were fired. rBGH was approved by the FDA in February, 1994, with no labeling or special pre-market safety testing required, despite massive opposition by consumers and dairy farmers, and over the objections of scientific experts from the Consumers Union, the Cancer Prevention Coalition, and other organizations.
...more...
and some follow-up:
http://www.netfeed.com/~jhill/RupertMurdoch.htmSent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 6:59 AM
Subject: FLORIDA COURT RULING SAYS MEDIA CAN LEGALLY LIE
** FLORIDA COURT RULING SAYS MEDIA CAN LEGALLY LIE **
On February 14, a Florida Appeals Court ruled that there is absolutely nothing illegal in a major media organisation lying, concealing or distorting information. The court reversed the US$425,000 jury verdict of 2000 that was in favour of journalist Jane Akre, who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information.
On August 18, 2000, a six person jury was unanimous in its conclusion that Akre was indeed fired for threatening to report the station's pressure to broadcast what jurors decided was "a false, distorted or slanted" story about the widespread use of Monsanto's rBGH, a genetically engineered growth hormone given to dairy cows. The court did not dispute the heart of Akre's claim, that Fox pressured her to broadcast a false story to protect the broadcaster from having to defend the truth in court as well as suffer the ire of irate advertisers.
Fox argued from the first, and failed on three separate occasions, in front of three different judges, to have the case tossed out on the grounds there there is no hard, fast and written rule against deliberate distortion of the news. The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, argued that the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves.
The Court of Appeals, in its six page written decision, held that the Federal Communications Commission's position against news distortion is only a "policy", not a promulgated law, rule or regulation.
Fox aired a report after the ruling was handed down, saying that it was "totally vindicated" by the verdict.
(Source: Sierra Times, March 1, 2003,
http://www.sierratimes.com/O3/02/28/arpubmg022803.htm; also see the website
http://www.foxBGHsuit.com)
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