PR Watch, Fourth Quarter 2000, Volume 7, No. 4

In our Second Quarter 1998 issue, PR Watch wrote about TV investigative reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, who were fired after refusing to go along with misleading alterations to their story about Monsanto's genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone.

Akre and Wilson recently won a landmark whistleblower lawsuit against the station that fired them, yet their former network continues its legal efforts to reverse the ruling and crush them financially.

Fired Fox TV reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson: "Today, few people recognize our faces."

by Jane Akre

After three judges, 27 months of pre-trial wrangling and five weeks of courtroom testimony, the jury finally had its say.

by Jane Akre

It's perfect. A television news organization, just found guilty of distorting the news, slants the news regarding the ruling.

The jury rendered its verdict just after five o'clock on the Friday evening of August 18. Fox WTVT ran the first story near the top of its 6 p.m. broadcast. The initial story on WTVT was a fairly straightforward report announcing to Tampa viewers that the jury had awarded me damages because the "station violated the state's whistleblower law." The news anchor announced the reason for the verdict in my favor, "because she refused to lie in that report and threatened to tell the FCC about it."

By 10 p.m., however, the Fox corporate spinmeisters had rewritten the story entirely, crafting a devastatingly embarrassing loss into "good news" for their side.

by Jane Akre

The truth is, only Monsanto really knows how many U.S. farmers are presently using their recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH). The company persistently refuses to release sales figures but claims it has now become the largest-selling dairy animal drug in America. The chemical giant's secretive operations were part of what made the story of rBGH such a compelling one for me to explore as an investigative reporter.

by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber

Created by the PR and lobby firm of Capitoline/ MS&L with funding from the National Milk Producers Federation, the Dairy Coalition is composed of business, government and non-profit groups, including university researchers funded by Monsanto as well as other carefully selected "third party" experts. Dick Weiss, director of the Dairy Coalition, now works with former Monsanto rBGH lobbyist Carol Tucker Foreman at the Consumer Federation of America.

by Jane Akre

Going to court against a powerful conglomerate like the Fox network is a daunting experience, and Fox knows how to intimidate people. Prior to our dismissal, Dave Boylan had flaunted the company's wealth in an attempt to make us back down. "We paid three billion for these stations," he told us on one occasion. "We'll tell you what the news is. The news is what we say it is!"

by Jane Akre

We didn't think much about it at first. A young man sat in the back of the courtroom during our five-week trial, taking careful, thorough notes. Finally Steve approached him and asked who he was, fully expecting the young man to say he was from a local law school or college. Instead he fessed up, identifying himself as Ian Davis, an intern representing the Public Strategies PR firm, based in Austin, Texas. The most famous member of Public Strategies is President Clinton's former press secretary, Mike McCurry, who heads its lobbying arm in Washington, D.C.

An Excerpt from the New Book by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber: Trust Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future

In 1992, the food industry's International Food Information Council (IFIC) retained Dr. G. Clotaire Rapaille, "an international market research expert," to research "how Americans relate to food biotechnology and genetic engineering." IFIC, an ardent enthusiast for the use of biotechnology in agriculture, wanted to know how it could overcome consumer apprehensions about the new technology.