Jane Akre

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Jane Akre and her husband Steve Wilson are former employees of FOX owned-and-operated station WTVT in Tampa, Florida. In 1997, they were fired from Fox News after refusing to include knowingly false information in their report concerning the Monsanto Corporation's production of RBGH, a drug designed to make cows produce more milk than what is natural. Side effects of the drug include a 25% greater chance of mastitis (infection of the udders). They successfully sued under Florida's whistle blower law and were awarded a US$425,000 settlement by jury decision. However, FOX appealed to an appellate court and won, after the court declared that the FCC policy against falsification that FOX violated was just a policy and not a "law, rule, or regulation", and so the whistle blower law did not apply.

In 2001, Jane Akre and her husband won the Goldman Environmental Prize as a recognition for their report on RBGH. [1]

FOX did not dispute that it tried to force Akre to broadcast a false story, but argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports. This would be the sixth time that FOX had used this argument in court.

The court agreed with WTVT's (Fox) argument "that the FCC's policy against the intentional falsification of the news -- which the FCC has called its "news distortion policy" -- does not qualify as the required "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102.[...]Because the FCC's news distortion policy is not a "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102, Akre has failed to state a claim under the whistle-blower's statute."^[1]

In 2004, FOX filed a US$1.7 million counter-suit against Akre and Wilson for trial fees and costs. '