Steve Wilson (broadcaster)

Steve Wilson is an American news reporter. Currently running his own nonprofit investigative reporting group, he is best known for his whistleblower lawsuit with then-wife Jane Akre against WTVT in 1997 and his work as WXYZ-TV's Chief Investigative Reporter in Detroit, Michigan in the late 2000s.

Wilson began his news career offering investigative news reports to various outlets in the 1980s. His reports were aired by CBS and ABC affiliates, and eventually led to Wilson joining Inside Edition, a nationally syndicated tabloid program. He would stay with Inside Edition for more than five years, and many of his reports won Emmy Awards for consumer reporting.

Wilson met his future wife, Jane Akre, at a journalism convention in Washington. The two later moved to South Florida and eventually to Tampa, where they joined WTVT, the local Fox owned-and-operated television station.

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 chose not to run the report, and they would later argue in court that the report was not "breakthrough journalism." Wilson and Akre then claimed that Monsanto's actions constituted the news broadcast telling lies, while WTVT countered looking only for fairness. According to Wilson and Akre, the two rewrote the report over 83 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 would later run a report about Monsanto and rBGH in 1998, and the report included defenses from Monsanto.

...
Wikipedia