Jane Akre is an American journalist best known for the whistleblower lawsuit by herself and her former husband, Steve Wilson, against Fox station WTVT in Tampa, Florida. Akre and Wilson are featured in the 2003 documentary film The Corporation which includes a section about the same lawsuit.

Professional life

Akre began her career at a small radio station as a news reporter and occasional disc jockey in 1978. She moved around the country as a news reporter and news anchor until spending some time at CNN. Following her firing from WTSP, she joined WTVT, a Fox Broadcasting Company affiliate.

Following her issues with WTVT, she took a series of jobs and was featured in The Corporation regarding her whistleblower lawsuit. In 2007 Akre became the editor-in-chief of the national news desk at InjuryBoard.com. and did not renew their contracts in 1998. WTVT later ran a report about Monsanto and rBGH in 1998, and the report included defenses from Monsanto. The trial commenced in summer 2000 with a jury dismissing all of the claims brought to trial by Wilson, but siding with one aspect of Akre's complaint, awarding Akre $425,000 and agreeing that Akre was a whistleblower because she believed there were violations of the Communications Act of 1934 and because she planned on reporting WTVT to the Federal Communications Commission.

An appeal was filed, and a ruling in February 2003 came down in favor of WTVT, who successfully argued that the FCC policy against falsification was not a "law, rule, or regulation", and so the whistle-blower law did not qualify as the required "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102 of the Florida Statutes. ... Because the FCC's news distortion policy is not a "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102 of the Florida Statutes, Project Censored called their story one of the "Most Censored Stories" of 2003, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. later quoted Wilson in his book, Crimes Against Nature, with Wilson asking "[W]hat reporter is going to challenge a network ... if the station can retaliate by suing the reporter to oblivion the way the courts are letting them do to us?" Wilson and Kennedy both failed to note that Wilson and Akre originally brought the suit. The two continued to challenge WTVT's license, the last such challenge coming in 2005.

References

See also

  • Journalism ethics and standards
  • Journalism