WTVT Fox-13 has had a roller coaster ride in recent years — changes of ownership, new network affiliation, old management swept out. But nothing has shaken the station's landmark tower on Kennedy Boulevard more than an almost seven-year dispute and lawsuit with two of its former reporters.
Reputations have been tarnished by the spat. Phil Metlin, WTVT's news director, says, "When I do a search online of my name, the results are just horrible. That's not who I am."
Metlin and his news staff are victims of a very shrewd — and highly disingenuous — campaign by the reporters, a husband-wife duo named Steve Wilson and Jane Akre. The two have appealed to the liberal community's knee-jerk hatred of Rupert Murdoch's Fox empire in an effort to cloud the facts in the case.
Part of the campaign has involved Wilson and Akre portraying themselves as David to Fox's Goliath. They have implied impoverishment in order to solicit contributions they say will pay legal costs. In their online fundraising pitch, Wilson and Akre write that the ongoing legal fight "will run up our legal bills even higher at a time we were just hoping to get back on our feet."
In fact, at the same time that was published, the couple was very quietly buying a $1.4-million luxury home in Ponte Vedra Beach near Jacksonville, according to information obtained in a Weekly Planet investigation. That purchase was made with the couple having only a $300,000 mortgage — indicating they were able to pony up more than a million dollars for a down payment.
The duo stress that they have used the public's contributions only for their legal fight. Wilson told the Planet: "We have never deliberately misappropriated a dime. … We have painstakingly kept our promise that every penny of the money gifted to us for legal expenses has in fact been used to pay for nothing but those direct expenses."
However, Wilson conceded — after weeks of avoiding direct answers to questions — "there is no way I can counter the argument that every donated dollar was a personal dollar we didn't have to spend."
Moreover, Wilson testified in 1999 that he had taken $5,000 from his fundraising entity, the Citizens' Fund for the Right to Know, and hidden it under his mattress to conceal it from the Internal Revenue Service. He also acknowledged in testimony that at least once he used the fund for personal purposes — $30 was spent on lawn care, money he said he repaid the fund after determining that he had made an error.
In an interview with the Planet, Wilson offered to document that the $5,000 had been returned to the Citizens' Fund. But he conditioned his offer on the Planet agreeing not to seek any specific accounting of how money in the fund is used. The Planet declined to make this agreement.
Wilson and Akre stake their fame on claims that WTVT tried to force them to print distorted and untrue news about a growth hormone used with cattle. The hormone is made by Monsanto, a corporation that's justifiably almost as high in the left's demonology as Fox.WTVT said it fired Wilson and Akre for repeated acts of insubordination. The couple in turn sued WTVT under a Florida whistleblower law and soon began a vigorous campaign of self-promotion. In 2000, a jury rejected Wilson's claim but gave Akre a partial victory. A state appeals court, however, overturned that victory, in February 2003.
Once Wilson and Akre began their fundraising campaign, they not only implied financial need but also appealed to liberal guilt, telling uninformed do-gooders that "we have decided to put our pride aside and ask all of you who will benefit from our struggle to help shoulder the burden of legal expenses."
Wilson insisted to the Planet that "there was no suggestion … we were destitute when we changed course and invited" people to contribute. He said getting "back on our feet" referred to the couple's emotional state — despite the clear linkage in that sentence to finances.
After Akre's verdict was overturned, the couple turbocharged their fundraising by claiming they may have to pay Fox's legal costs, which, they say, "could amount to maybe $3-million." That's a gross exaggeration. Fox won fees only for the relatively minor portion spent during the appeal. Wilson acknowledged he has no basis for the $3-million figure, but justified it by saying that Fox might — just might — someday be awarded other fees.
Wilson has refused to discuss his personal finances. In acerbic e-mails, he has alluded to having valuable real estate, to other business ventures, and, with a vintage Wilson sneer, said: "I make somewhat above the minimum wage" at a Detroit TV station.
He also suggested — without exactly claiming — that a lucky lottery ticket or a windfall inheritance might explain his wealth.
But, Wilson had been working for the Detroit TV station for only about a year when he purchased the Ponte Vedra Beach home. And when asked directly if he has won the lottery or received an inheritance, he refused to answer.
Wilson is dogged at labeling criticism of him as erroneous, but he is far less less aggressive at correcting information that helps his case. For example, although now hinting at varied sources of wealth, he has allowed the Goldman Environmental Prize, which gave Wilson and Akre an award in 2001, to help their fundraising by stating that "their assets (were) drained" in the WTVT dispute. (The Goldman prize, which included $125,000, is the only verifiable source of money cited by Wilson.)
Wilson says he will answer questions from people who have contributed. Of course, until now, most of them wouldn't have known how wealthy he is.
During the Planet's investigation, Wilson claimed there were errors in the results of our public records and database search. But over a three-week period he refused to cite the specific mistakes or even to say whether they were significant. He threatened litigation if the Planet ran the information that he claimed was erroneous. Florida law, as with most states, protects reporting on the contents of public records.
Wilson sought to give another journalist, who was relying on the Planet's reporting, the impression that the errors somehow undermined the basic story that he had purchased a luxury home using a $1-million down payment. Wilson wrote Michael James, editor of News Blues, an Ocala-based online newsletter for broadcasters: "Neither Jane nor I now own — NOR HAVE WE ever [sic] OWNED — a $1.4-million beach townhouse in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida."
The implication is clear, and totally misleading. The "errors" turned out to be that a database summary, based on public records, of the Wilson/Akre real estate deal called it a "single family residence-townhouse." The property is actually a "house."
More important than the details of the purchase was the underlying ethical issue. Wilson and Akre had been soliciting funds for years, and had never told potential supporters they were quite capable of paying their own bills.
Moreover, even if contributed money did pay lawyers and expenses, that money enabled Wilson and Akre to avoid using their own funds to pay for a lawsuit they had filed — and lost. And the gifts helped them maintain their posh lifestyle, a fact not revealed to the public.
In a court deposition on Oct 19, 1999, Wilson gave very interesting testimony about his Citizens' Fund. Asked what he did with $5,000 in contributions to the fund, he responded: "I think I put it under the mattress. … I was unclear at that time as to whether or not the accounts … might be subject to seizure by the IRS, and I didn't want the IRS to have the money, so I took it out."
When Wilson was first asked by the Planet about the funds, he claimed in an e-mail that it was an "off-handed remark" that "no one in the room at the time would have concluded was a serious response."
Wilson's sworn testimony, however, was very detailed and lengthy on what he did with the money, and why. For example, he stated he converted the cash to a cashier's check. "It remains under the mattress at my house," he testified. "I think that's where it is. We may have stuck it somewhere else. But the money was never spent."
The duo had not registered their fundraising with the state when the Planet began asking questions. Wilson cited an exemption that allows individuals and families to raise funds if the money is exclusively for themselves. Still, Gwen Worlds, who supervises solicitation registration for the state, said that since Wilson and Akre solicit money through an organization called the Citizens' Fund for the Right to Know — and that name doesn't indicate how the money will be used — the couple would probably have to register. After the state began inquiring about the fundraising, Wilson said he had decided to register.
So, if Wilson and Akre are not exactly penniless crusaders or impoverished media martyrs, what are they?Wilson and Akre were hired by WTVT in Tampa in December 1996 — before Fox owned the station. The non-Fox news director, Daniel Webster, who would be fired by the Murdochites, had problems with Wilson and Akre similar to the ones experienced by his Fox replacements. This poses no little problem to the logic of generating hate against Fox, so Wilson and Akre's cheerleaders simply ignore the fact that Fox inherited a problem.
The duo contended the station had mangled their reporting to appease Monsanto. The station countered the reporters were sabotaging the process. Court documents show Wilson conceded "there's not really a lot of difference between" their script and what was approved by their managers.
So what was the problem? My opinion: The two wanted a meltdown and a very lucrative martyrdom — from fundraising to speaking engagements to book deals.
Florida's whistleblower law protects people who refuse to violate a law, rule or regulation. Wilson and Akre claimed this includes the 1934 Communications Act that expresses a general policy against intentional distortion by broadcasters.
In reality, the FCC has never adopted a formal rule on news distortion. For the FCC to Monday-morning quarterback news decisions would be an obvious violation of news organizations' First Amendment rights. Court decisions are clear, as with a 1985 opinion that concluded the FCC will not "inquire why a particular piece of information was reported or not reported."
More important, WTVT was committed to running a gutsy report on the hormone, and eventually did so without Wilson's and Akre's participation. All WTVT wanted was to include Monsanto's position, for fairness and to protect the station from a libel suit — standard operating procedure in investigative reporting.
That inclusion is what Wilson and Akre decry as "distortion" or depict on their website as a "lie."
WTVT has had a long and strong reputation for investigative reporting, which is why Wilson and Akre were hired. The station should have seen warning flags. In the early 1990s, Wilson worked in Miami for the TV tabloid Inside Edition. He had negotiated with a Miami attorney to buy evidence, a videotape of a prostitute having sex with a prominent South Florida politician. Wilson had concealed a microphone in his briefcase to record the discussion. The Dade County prosecutor issued a report clearing the lawyer of wrongdoing but describing Wilson's actions as a "setup."
A few years later, Wilson was widely criticized for stalking and scaring — legally so — the family of an insurance executive. The family members included a pregnant woman and a three-year-old daughter. Even First Amendment advocates had a hard time defending Wilson's tactics. One conceded there is a "cringe factor" in Wilson's antics.
During the litigation with WTVT, Wilson tried to spy on one of the station's lawyers by posing as a flower delivery guy to get into her apartment building.
Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz astutely observed in 1996 that the "flamboyant" Wilson is "known for ambushing" people.
Instead of gut-punching news, WTVT and its former reporters ended up in court.Each reporter could have won on two whistleblower points — that the station had fired them for complaining about news distortion, and that the station had fired them for threatening to go to the FCC.
Wilson lost on both. The jury ruled for Akre on the threatening-to-go-to-the-FCC point, and awarded her $425,000. But this year, Florida's Second District Court of Appeal ruled the case had no place in the state's courts and reversed Akre's partial victory. Despite that, the two have claimed the earlier trial decision as proof tha Fox stations broadcast false and distorted news.
It just ain't so.
Here's what Wilson/Akre trumpet in their misleading rhetoric: "[The] jury unanimously determined that Fox 'acted intentionally and deliberately to falsify or distort the plaintiffs' news reporting … .'" And, they describe Fox's defense as: "It's not illegal to lie on the news."
The truth? At the trial, the duo made a much narrower claim. They asserted, and the judge agreed, that all they had to prove was that it was their belief Fox was distorting the news. Circuit Court Judge Ralph Steinberg ruled: "The plaintiff, in order to prevail, doesn't have to prove there was, in fact, a violation of the law — a law, rule or regulation. … To have the jury in this case determine that, in fact, there was a violation of the law or a rule or regulation, I think that would be going too far." Five times in his instructions to the jury, Steinberg reiterated the "belief standard."
Wilson's style is to barrage the press with mountains of spin and obfuscation — and he often bullies his point into print or onto the air. After the Second District Court of Appeal ruled on the case in February, both the Associated Press and the St. Petersburg Times ran stories that bought into Wilson and Akre's spin that WTVT engaged in deception. Both news outlets, after examining the reality of the case, issued corrections. AP stated: "The jury did not decide whether the report itself was false or distorted."
Fox could have settled long ago — probably for far less money than the jury award. But Fox attorney Ted Russell said, "We couldn't allow that [jury] verdict to stand. Most companies would have been happy to avoid paying money. But we felt we had to stand behind our journalists, whose reputations had been besmirched by Wilson and Akre."
John Sugg previously was editor of the Weekly Planet, where he reported on Fox and Wilson/Akre. Now senior editor of the Planet's sister paper in Atlanta, Creative Loafing, Sugg can be reached at 404-614-1241 or at john.sugg@creativeloafing.com.
This article appears in Oct 16-22, 2003.