Ilona Meagher has just posted on her blog site,PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within, an outstandingcollection of links and a few video'son what the subject title describes "Art For, By And About Veterans Begins Sunday" and the link just above will take you to it.
She starts it out with this:
People in the United States of America have been "asleep at the wheel" while their airwaves, traditional media, education and political discourse have been perpetually "dumbed down" to the point where the average citizen is often unaware and indifferent of major people, places and events of the world and from history.
If you don't think education matters, and that news like the latest pop-glam scandal are more important than knowing what goes into our food, our environment, our foreign and domestic policies and what's happening around the world, then you'll probably fail to grasp the significance of the following video:
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 the station 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]
After the verdict in the original case, according to Jane Akre,
By 10:31 p.m. when the station buried the story in the late news, the report was that WTVT was "completely vindicated." A FOX attorney from Los Angeles was seen telling viewers the jury's decision "does not have to do with distortion of the news."
After a five-week trial and six hours of deliberation which ended August 18, 2000, a Florida state court jury unanimously determined that Fox "acted intentionally and deliberately to falsify or distort the plaintiffs' news reporting on BGH." In that decision, the jury also found that Jane's threat to blow the whistle on Fox's misconduct to the FCC was the sole reason for the termination... and the jury awarded $425,000 in damages which makes her eligible to apply for reimbursement for all court costs, expenses and legal fees.
The appeal found that distorting the news was technically not a crime...
