More on the Fox/Monsanto Coverup of rBGH

Got Milk? Get Fired
Jane Akre, In These Times
May 8, 2001

After three judges, 27 months of pre-trial wrangling and five weeks of
courtroom testimony, the jury finally had its say. On August 28, 2000, it
awarded me $425,000 in damages for being fired by TV station WTVT
in Tampa, Florida. WTVT is a Fox station owned by Rupert Murdoch.
The verdict made me the first journalist ever to win a "whistleblower"
judgment in court against a news organization accused of illegally distorting
the news.

Notwithstanding being vindicated in court, I have yet to collect a dime of
that jury award. There is no telling how long Fox will drag out the appeals
process as it seeks to have the judgment overturned by a higher court.
Meanwhile, I am still out of work, as is my husband, Steve Wilson, who was
also fired on December 2, 1997, for refusing to falsify a news story to
appease the powerful Monsanto Corporation.

The story Fox tried to kill involved rBGH milk, which is produced using
Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone. We documented how
the hormone, which can harm cows, was approved by the government as
a veterinary drug without adequate testing of how it affected the children
and adults who drink rBGH milk.

You would think that our jury verdict, with its landmark significance for
journalists everywhere, would spark some interest from the news media
itself. Instead, the silence has been deafening. One of the biggest names in
investigative reporting -- Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes (made infamous by the
movie "The Insider") -- took a look at our case, and then decided not to do
a story. Why not? He deemed it "too inside baseball." Translation: There is
an unwritten rule that news organizations seldom turn their critical eyes on
themselves or even their competitors.

This rule is not absolute, of course. Some previous legal challenges
involving the media have received heavy news coverage, including the battle
between 60 Minutes and Vietnam-era Gen. William Westmoreland; the "food
disparagement" lawsuit that Texas cattlemen brought against talk-show host
Oprah Winfrey; and the multimillion-dollar lawsuit brought against ABC-TV by
the Food Lion grocery store chain.

All of those other lawsuits, however, involved conflicts between a news
organization and some outside group or individual. Our lawsuit involved a
conflict within the media, pitting labor (working journalists Steve and
myself) against broadcast managers, editors and their attorneys who hijacked
the editorial process in an effort to remove all risk of being sued or
losing an advertiser.

Prior to my firing at WTVT, I had worked for 19 years in broadcast
journalism, and Steve's career in front of the camera was even longer. He is
the recipient of four Emmy awards and a National Press Club citation. His
reporting achievements include an exposé of unsafe cars that led to the
biggest-ever auto recall in America.

However, we have spent three years off the air, tied up in a seemingly
interminable legal battle. Few people recognize our faces anymore.

The truth is, only Monsanto really knows how many U.S. farmers are presently
using rBGH, which is reportedly now injected into more than 30 percent of
America's dairy herd (rBGH is trade-named Posilac, and is also known as
recombinant bovine somatotropin or rBST). 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.

In late 1996, Steve and I were hired as investigative journalists for the
Fox-owned television station in Tampa. Looking for projects to pursue, I
soon learned that millions of Americans and their children who consume milk
from rBGH-treated cows unwittingly have become participants in what amounts
to a giant public health experiment. Despite promises from grocers that they
would not buy rBGH milk "until it gains widespread acceptance," I discovered
and carefully documented how those promises were quietly broken. I also
learned that health concerns raised by scientists around the world have
never been settled, and indeed, the product has been outlawed or shunned in
every other major industrialized country on the planet. Clearly, there is
not "widespread acceptance" of rBGH, not in 1996 when I began my research,
and not today.

Steve helped me gather and produce a TV report based on the information we
discovered. The investigation began with random visits to seven farms to
determine whether and how widely rBGH was being used in Florida. I confirmed
its use at every one of the seven farms I visited, and then I discovered
what amounted to an ingenious public relations campaign that seemed to have
succeeded in keeping consumers in the dark. I learned that behind the
scenes, those grocers and the major co-ops of Florida's dairymen had pulled
the wool over the eyes of consumers with what amounted to a clever "don't
ask, don't tell" policy combined with some careful wording to answer any
inquiries about the milk.

In an on-camera interview, the president of one of the two giant dairy
co-ops in the state said that he had written a letter to dairymen on behalf
of grocers requesting that farmers not inject their cows with the artificial
growth hormone. But in response to my questions, the co-op president
made a startling confession. He admitted he did nothing but write the letter.

"Did the dairymen get back to you?" I asked. "No." "What was their
response?" "They accepted it, I guess. They didn't respond."

To this day, any consumer who calls to inquire about rBGH gets essentially
the same well-coordinated response from a big Florida grocer or their dairy
supplier: "We've asked our suppliers not to use it," they say. This is a
truthful but incredibly misleading statement that nearly always produces the
desired result, leading consumers to the false conclusion that their local
milk supply is unaffected by rBGH use.

Even if you ask directly, "How much of your milk comes from cows injected
with an artificial growth hormone?" we discovered that you are still likely
to be misled or lied to.

Steve recently made an inquiry to the dairy co-op that supplies the milk
served to our daughter and her classmates in their school cafeteria. First
he was told there was "zero percent" rBGH use. Then a woman in the dairy's
Quality Assurance department offered the assurance that rBGH is not used at
all "as far as we know." Pressed further, she said the co-op "does not
recommend it because cows do just fine without," but ultimately admitted
that the co-ops "have no authority to check whether it is or is not being
used." Steve pressed further: "Couldn't you just ask the dairy farmers who
supply your milk whether or not they're injecting their cows?" A long
silence followed. Finally, the reply: "I suppose we could, but they could
just lie to us."

After nearly three months of investigation that took me to interviews in
five states, we produced a four-part series that Fox scheduled to begin on
February 24, 1997. Station managers were so proud of the work that they
saturated virtually every radio station in the Tampa Bay area with thousands
of dollars worth of ads urging viewers to watch. But then, on the Friday
evening prior to the broadcast, the station's pride turned to panic when a
fax arrived from a Monsanto attorney.

The letter minced no words in charging that Steve and I had "no scientific
competence" to report our story. Monsanto's attorney described our news
reports, which he had never seen, as a series of "recklessly made
accusations that Monsanto has engaged in fraud, has published lies about
food safety, has attempted to bribe government officials in a neighboring
country and has been 'buying' favorable opinions about the product or its
characteristics from reputable scientists in their respective fields."

And to make sure nobody missed the point, the attorney also reminded Fox
News CEO Roger Ailes that our behavior as investigative journalists was
particularly dangerous "in the aftermath of the Food Lion verdict." He was
referring, of course, to the then-recent case against ABC News that sent a
frightening chill through every newsroom in America.

The Food Lion verdict showed that even with irrefutable evidence from a
hidden camera--documenting the doctoring of potentially unsafe food sold to
unsuspecting shoppers--a news organization that dares to expose a giant
corporation could still lose big in court.

Confronted with these threats, WTVT decided to "delay" the broadcast,
ostensibly to double check its accuracy. A week later after the station
manager screened the report, found no major problems with its accuracy and
fairness, and set a new air date, Fox received a second letter from
Monsanto's attorney, claiming that "some of the points" we were asking about
"clearly contain the elements of defamatory statements which, if repeated in
a broadcast, could lead to serious damage to Monsanto and dire consequences
for Fox News."

Never mind that I carried a milk crate full of documentation to support
every word of our proposed broadcast. Our story was pulled again, and if not
dead, it was clearly on life support as Fox's own attorneys and top-level
managers, fearful of a legal challenge or losing advertiser support, looked
for some way to discreetly pull the plug.

The station where we worked recently had been purchased by Fox, and
we soon discovered that the new management had a radically different
definition of media responsibility than anything we previously had encountered
in our journalistic careers. As Fox took control, it fired the station manager
who originally hired us and replaced him with Dave Boylan, a career salesman
without any roots in journalism and seemingly lacking the devotion to serve
the public interest that motivates all good investigative reporting.

Not long after Boylan became the new station manager, Steve and I went
up to see him in his office. He promised to look into the trouble we were
having getting our rBGH story on the air. But when we returned a few days
later, his strategy seemed clear. "What would you do if I killed your rBGH
story?" he asked. What he really wanted to know was whether we would
tell anyone the real reason why he was killing the story. In other words,
would we leak details of the pressure from Monsanto that led to a coverup
of what the station had already ballyhooed as important health information
every consumer should know?

It was suddenly and unmistakably clear that Boylan's biggest concern was the
concern of every salesman, no matter what product he peddles: image. He
understood that it could not be good for the station's image if word leaked
out that powerful advertisers backed by threatening attorneys could actually
determine what gets on the six o'clock news--and what gets swept under the
rug.

Boylan was in a jam. If he ran an honest story and Monsanto's threatened
"dire consequences" did materialize, his career could be crippled. On the
other hand, if he killed the story and the sordid details leaked out, he
risked losing the only product any newsroom has to sell: its own
credibility.

To resolve this dilemma, Boylan offered us a deal. He would pay us for the
remaining seven months of our contracts, in exchange for an agreement that
we would broadcast the rBGH story in a way that would not upset Monsanto.
Fox lawyers essentially would have the final say on the exact wording of our
report, and once it aired, we were free to do whatever we pleased--as long
as we forever kept our mouths shut about the entire ugly episode.

As journalists, Steve and I wanted to get the story on the air more than
anything. A buyout, no matter how attractive, was out of the question.
Neither of us could fathom taking money to shut up about a public health
issue that absolutely and by any standard deserved to see the light of day.

The remainder of 1997 was a tense standoff, with the station unwilling to
either kill or run the story. Fox attorney Carolyn Forrest was sent in to
review our work, with a mandate from Fox Television Stations President
Mitch Stern to "take no risk" with the story. "Taking no risk" meant cutting
out substance, context and information. Boylan told us to "just do what
Carolyn wants" with the story, but what Carolyn really wanted to do was
destroy it. We rewrote the story, rewrote it and rewrote it again, trying to
come up with a version that would both remain true to the facts and satisfy
the station's concerns.

Nearly a full year passed as we wrangled over this important public health
story. After turning down the station's buyout offer, we ended up doing 83
rewrites of the story, not one of which was acceptable to Fox lawyers, who
were fully in charge of the editing process.

At the first window in our contracts, December 2, 1997, we were both fired,
allegedly for "no cause." However, an angry Forrest made a major legal
mistake when she wrote a letter spelling out the "definite reasons" for the
firing, and characterizing our response to her proposed editorial changes as
"unprofessional and inappropriate conduct." But just what is the
"professional and appropriate" response that reporters should make when
their own station asks them to lie on television?

On April 2, 1998, we filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Fox Television.
Under Florida state law, a whistleblower is an employee, regardless of his
or her profession, who suffers retaliation for refusing to participate in illegal
activity or threatening to report that illegal activity to authorities. We
contended that we were entitled to protection as whistleblowers, because
the distortions our employers wanted us to broadcast were not in the public
interest and violated the law and policy of the Federal Communications Commission.

Going to court against a powerful conglomerate like Fox is a daunting
experience, and Fox knows how to intimidate people. Prior to our dismissal,
Boylan had flaunted the company's wealth in an attempt to make us back down.
"We paid $3 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!"

The Fox legal strategy was woven tightly from day one and helped by a
well-coordinated team effort. They claimed that we had turned our backs on
the story and were using the whistleblower claim as a "tactic." We missed
deadlines, they said, and had told managers and lawyers we were "going to
get Monsanto." They also claimed that we became convinced that rBGH milk
causes cancer, and that we became advocates instead of objective reporters
of the controversy.

None of that was true. Our story did bring forth information that had been
suppressed for far too long: that a spin-off hormone in the altered milk has
been linked to tumor proliferation; that consumers did not have the benefit
of labeling at the grocery store shelf because Monsanto had sued two small
dairies to block it; and that the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine,
which reviewed the drug, did not do long-term human toxicity tests. The
cancer questions to this day remain unanswered. The human effects are, in
essence, being tested on consumers in the marketplace.

The Fox effort, though united, was not flawless. Fox News Vice President
Phil Metlin told the six-person jury that if he ever learned a news
organization was trying to eliminate risk by using a threatening letter as a
"road map" to craft a story, such news would "make me want to throw up."
But just days later, on the stand, a local attorney for Fox admitted he did
just that, using Monsanto directives to help craft the rBGH story. Metlin
actually turned white. He also didn't score any points with his bosses when
he admitted that he found no errors in our reporting of the rBGH story, and
he saw no reason why our final version of the story could not be aired.

Fox attorney Bill McDaniels earned the nickname "Thumper" from our team
because he made an audible noise with his foot whenever he got nervous.
There was a lot of thumping during the presentation of our case,
particularly when Ralph Nader took time from his presidential campaign to
serve as an expert witness. Fox had tried unsuccessfully, through
objections, to have Nader eliminated as a witness.

Nader told jurors what the FCC has repeatedly said, that it is "a most
heinous act" to use the public's airwaves to slant, distort and falsify the
news. "A reporter has a legal duty to act in accordance with the
Communications Act of 1934 in addition to their professional responsibility
to be accurate, not to be used as an instrument of deception to the
audience," Nader testified.

McDaniels also objected vehemently to Walter Cronkite's inclusion as an
expert on our side. "Mr. Cronkite is not an expert in the pre-broadcast
review of a story," said the Fox counsel. I couldn't believe my ears. For 30
years Cronkite was the managing editor of the CBS Evening News. During
Cronkite's deposition, McDaniels had asked the 83-year-old anchorman whether
he was a lawyer and suggested to Cronkite that he couldn't be an expert in
the pre-broadcast review of a story unless he was an attorney.

In his deposition, Cronkite said that an ethical journalist should resist
directives that would result in a false or slanted story being broadcast.
"He should not go a microinch toward that sort of thing. That is a violation
of every principle of good journalism," Cronkite testified.

The jury awarded me with $425,000. Fox immediately announced that it
would appeal. The network argued to the judge that he should vacate the
jury's verdict. During the trial itself, McDaniels had claimed that Fox merely
wanted "to get our good name back" and repair the damage to its credibility
that we had inflicted by telling our story on a Web site (www.foxbghsuit.com)
and speaking to groups around the world. During the motion to vacate, however,
McDaniels seemed to toss the network's credibility in the garbage by making
an argument that any legitimate news organization would be embarrassed to
voice. "There is no law, rule or regulation against slanting the news," he told
the judge.

The judge denied the motion, but years of appeals lie ahead. Every
indication we have received suggests that the network plans to continue its
efforts to wear us down with time-consuming, tedious and expensive legal
maneuvers. Fox will appeal first to the 2nd District Court of Appeals, then
the case could go to the Florida Supreme Court and eventually the U.S.
Supreme Court. All the while, we won't see a cent of our winnings.

They have the financial wherewithal to do this, whereas we have been out of
work for more than three years with no immediate job offers on the horizon.
Somehow we will have to find a way to house and feed ourselves and our
daughter, while simultaneously continuing to wage a full-time battle against
a media giant.

This article originally appeared in In These Times, and a version of it
appeared in PR Watch (www.prwatch.org).