We Distort; You Decide

I must have missed this when I was in Hawaii.

A couple of disgruntled reporters for Fox News in Tampa, Florida, are contesting the renewal of the station's broadcast license on the grounds that "the licensee is not operating in the public interest and lacks the good character to do so."

Okay, why are they disgruntled? Well, they said they were pressured to distort their stories about the use of BGH on dairy cows in Flordia and around the nation. They say Fox didn't want to upset advertisers or invite a lawsuit from Monsanto, the maker of the hormone, and so they were fired.

The reporters filed and won a $425,000 settlement under the Whistleblower Act and later won the Goldman Environmental Prize for sticking to their guns.

So why are they going after Fox's license? Because the appellate court accepted Fox's defense that since it is not against any law, rule or regulation for a broadcaster to distort the news, the journalists were never entitled to employee protections as whistleblowers in the first place. Oh, yeah, and now the station is suing the reporters for legal expenses.

A related Amicus Curiae brief argued "If upheld by this court, the decision would convert personnel actions arising from disagreements over editorial policy into litigation battles in which state courts would interpret and apply federal policies that raise significant and delicate constitutional and statutory issues."

This is good news for us, right?