Jane Akre

Jane Akre is an American journalist best known for the whistleblower lawsuit by herself and her former husband, Steve Wilson, against Fox Broadcasting Company 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.

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.

In 1997, Wilson and Akre began work on a story regarding the agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto and recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), a milk additive that had been approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration but also blamed for a number of health issues. Wilson and Akre planned a four-part investigative report on Monsanto's use of rBGH, which prompted Monsanto to write to Roger Ailes, president of Fox News Channel, in an attempt to have the report reviewed for bias and because of the "enormous damage that can be done" as a result of the report.

WTVT did not run the report, and later argued in court that the report was not "breakthrough journalism." Wilson and Akre then claimed that WTVT's actions constituted the news broadcast telling lies, while WTVT countered that it was looking only for fairness. According to Wilson and Akre, the two rewrote the report over 80 times over the course of 1997, and WTVT decided to exercise "its option to terminate their employment contracts without cause," 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.

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