Fired reporters challenge Fox TV license [View All]

http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewMediaFile5.cfm?REF=4

by Steve Wilson

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.

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."

The challenge stems from what the reporters say was a year-long experience inside the station, where they resisted Fox managers who repeatedly ordered them to distort a series of news reports about the secret use of an artificial hormone injected in dairy cattle throughout Florida and beyond.

The claim also cites another case of alleged deliberate distortion at the Fox-owned television station in Kansas City, WDAF Fox-4.

"No broadcaster should be allowed to put its own financial interests ahead of the public interest."