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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (52030)	10/11/2006 2:56:57 PM
From: Bill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Typical lefty attack on fair and balanced news. What else is new?

To: Suma who wrote (52030)	10/11/2006 3:51:24 PM
From: mph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Without reading the actual appellate decision, my guess is that Fox won because there are no statutory, constitutional or common law public policies against distorted news presentations. Due to that, the plaintiffs could not successfully allege that they were terminated in violation of public policy. Nor are they protected as whistleblowers since distortion of the news is not proscribed by law or subject to criminal sanctions. I have to laugh at a "news" story that likely distorts the actual holding of the case to make a political point:-) I should also add that a jury found in favor of the plaintiffs' claims, which often happens whether or not the claims are actually true.

To: Suma who wrote (52030)	10/11/2006 5:52:31 PM
From: mph	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 90947

caselaw.lp.findlaw.com If you go to that page and scroll down to New World Communications of Tampa v. Akre, issued 2/14/03 by the Second District, you can read the decision yourself. It was as I suspected. First, both plaintiffs lost at trial on most of their claims. Only the wife prevailed on one claim, which was a claim of retaliatory termination based on a threat to report to the FCC her claim that the defendant was distorting the news story. The verdict in her favor on that claim was for $425,000.(The author of your article didn't even know that a verdict or judgment is not the same thing as a "settlement.") The wife lost that claim on appeal because the FCC had no actual regulation covering the subject of her complaint, i.e., a claim of distortion. Bottom line is that the opinion is a garden variety example of how a whistleblower claim can fail if it is not tethered to a fundamental public policy or some law or regulation that has a clearly articulated public policy basis.