Steve Wilson Biography

Steve Wilson is an American news reporter. Currently, he is 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.

Steve Wilson Family

He has managed to keep his personal life off the limelight and hence there is very little known about him. Information about his parents and his childhood is still under review but will be updated as soon as it’s clear.

Steve Wilson Married

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

Steve Wilson  Career

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 him 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.

WTVT Whistleblower lawsuit

In 1997, Wilson and Akre started working on a story with respect to the agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto and recombinant ox-like development hormone (rBGH), a milk added substance that had been affirmed for use by the Food and Drug Administration but likewise accused of various medical problems. Wilson and Akre arranged a four-section investigative report on Monsanto’s utilization of rBGH, which provoked Monsanto to compose to Roger Ailes, president of Fox News Channel, trying to have the report assessed for inclination and in view of the “tremendous harm that should be possible” because of the report.

WTVT decided not to run the report, and they would later contend in court that the report was not “achievement news coverage”. Wilson and Akre then asserted that Monsanto’s activities established the news communicate lying, while WTVT countered searching just for decency. As per Wilson and Akre, the two revamped the report more than multiple times through the span of 1997, and WTVT chose to work out “its choice to fire their business contracts without cause,” and did not reestablish their agreements in 1998.

WTVT would later run a report about Monsanto and rBGH in 1998, and the report included safeguards from Monsanto. When their agreements were not reestablished, Wilson and Akre documented a claim concerning WTVT’s “news bending” under Florida’s informant laws, guaranteeing their end was countering for “opposing WTVT’s endeavors to twist or smother the BGH story.”

In a joint articulation, Wilson asserted that he and Akre “were over and over-arranged to go ahead and communicate certifiably wrong and unscrupulous variants of the story,” and “were given those directions after some abnormal state corporate campaigning by Monsanto (the amazing medication organization that makes the hormone) and furthermore … by individuals from Florida’s dairy and basic need industries.”

The preliminary initiated in summer 2000 with a jury expelling the majority of the cases conveyed to preliminary by Wilson, however favoring one part of Akre’s objection, granting Akre $425000 and concurring that Akre was an informant since she accepted there were infringement of the 1934 Federal Communications Act and that she anticipated announcing WTVT to the Federal Communications Commission. Akre’s contention in the preliminary was that they didn’t need to demonstrate genuine news mutilation, yet that they rather accepted such bending happened.

An intrigue was documented, and a decision in February 2003 descended for WTVT, who effectively contended that the FCC arrangement against distortion was not a “law, principle, or guideline”, thus the informant law did not qualify as the required “law, standard, or guideline” under segment 448.102. … Since the FCC’s news twisting arrangement isn’t a “law, standard, or guideline” under segment 448.102, Akre has neglected to express a case under the informant’s statute.”

The request did not address any adulteration claims, noticing that “as a limit matter … Akre neglected to express a case under the informant’s rule,” yet noticed that the lower court ruled against the majority of Wilson’s charges and the majority of Akre’s cases except for the informant guarantee that was overturned.

Wilson and Akre ended up prominent among numerous news sources. The 2003 documentary The Corporation featured Wilson and Akre talking about their fight with WTVT. With Wilson asserting that the jury “confirmed that the story they influenced us to communicate, the story we opposed telling, was in actuality false, mutilated, or slanted.”

Project Censored called their story a standout amongst the “Most Censored Stories” of 2003, claiming that the “Court Ruled That the Media Can Legally Lie.” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. later cited Wilson in his book, Crimes Against Nature, with Wilson asking “[W]hat journalist is going to challenge a system … in the event that the station can counter by suing the correspondent to obscurity the manner in which the courts are giving them a chance to do to us?”

Following the story, Akre and Wilson won the Goldman Environmental Prize for the report, as well as an Ethics in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. The two keep on testing WTVT’s permit, the last such test coming in 2005.

Kwame Kilpatrick and the Civic Fund

After spending some time away from the broadcast media, Wilson joined WXYZ-TV in Detroit, Michigan in 2001. In 2005, he filed a report regarding the Kilpatrick Civic Fund, a fund created by Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to help improvements in education and voter empowerment. The reports continued, with the situation escalating.

Kilpatrick’s bodyguards shoved Wilson in one instance. He also followed Kilpatrick around the country, at one point booking a plane ticket directly next to the Mayor in an attempt to corner him for an interview. The City of Detroit later prepared and broadcast a video attacking Wilson on its city-controlled Public-access television cable TV channel, entitled Steve Wilson, the Inventive Reporter.

Beyond WXYZ

In 2010, Wilson’s contract at WXYZ was not renewed. The station’s corporate management called it “a business decision.” He claimed he was let go “by a corporate owner who is not in this community.” In a follow-up email to Detroit blogger Dave Shea, Wilson noted his intent to start a not-for-profit news organization he originally dubbed The Michigan Center for Investigative Reporting.

On the day Wilson’s non-profit (ultimately named The Michigan News Center) was to go live on the Internet, he suffered a massive heart attack. On life support for nearly a week, he later said he owed his life to the efforts of the cardiac team at Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital. Shortly after being released, Wilson ultimately posted his site and continued efforts to gain community support for the Center.

Steve Wilson Net Worth

Wilson is an investigative reporter who has worked for various media houses such as  WTVT, WXYZ and FCC among others. His estimated net worth is still under review but will be updated as soon as it’s clear.