The most troubling trend in recent times has been a steady erosion of journalism’s integrity.
In particular, the latest example has been ABC’s lax ethics that visited devastation on a company with a thirty-year history of safe operation, Beef Products, Inc. The company pioneered the provision of lean, finely textured beef which is blended with fattier hamburger to make it more learn and nutritious. It also protects it against pathogens with a process that won the coveted 2007 “Black Pearl” award from the International Association for Food Protection.
ABC reporter Jim Avila, in hot pursuit of a journalism award, wrote a series of reports claiming that BPI was producing “pink slime” with the network hyping the term by using it 52 times in a two-week period in March. Any reporter investigating BPI would have swiftly found a mountain of evidence exonerating the company from any hint of the allegations made against it.
Avila’s reporting put BPI in jeopardy of closing down entirely, forcing the suspension of business at plants in Texas, Kansas, and Iowa, while the headquarters plant in Dakota Dunes, South Dakota, struggles to continue operations. So far 650 employees have lost their jobs with several thousand more jobs at risk at companies that relied on BPI, affecting their families and communities.
Sue his ass.
I never imagined I would side with MSM against Kate on anything – this has to amount to blasphemy – even to myself. I have as much love for MSM as 99% of SDA community, but I have to say that I am very uncomfortable eating meat trimmings heated and mechanically fat-reduced through centrifugal processing and then treated with ammonia. The process is described on Wikipedia (I know it is far from objective on just about anything):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_slime
I love my steak and AAA Alberta beef as a whole, thank you very much, but try to stay away from ground meat.
What’s a little human collateral damage when a sensational PC headline is at risk?
I’ve adopted Kathy Shaidle’s ideology on media ethical posing some time ago, these compromised ambulance-chasers and headline manufacturers are neither moral or intelligent enough to pose as ethical socially responsible paragons.
The Journo “profession” is right up there with $10 escorts or dope peddlers.
SUE HIM!
Otto Von Bismarck commented on the process of making policy was akin to making sausage…not a pretty process.
PRI has produced a safe nuticious product which offends the VEGAN/PETA crowd…by it’s success.
The mindset is similar to the eco-freak notions of “fossil-fuel” toxicity. Namely fossil fuels (now including natural gas) are indisputable barriers to their solar-wind wet dreams.
BTW I really like sausage….
What is needed is a fund and organization to take on the litigation(S) for firms that are harmed by faulty reporting. Such entities exist for compaines that are fighting Obamacare – specifically the mandate that fimrs have to have health plans that pay for the day after pill and abortions.
Clearly the solution is zero tolerance – firms should sue bad journalists and their employers every time they are harmed. If that happens the ‘ethics’ and standards of journos would improve dramatically.
A local food chain used to irradite their ground beef to kill bacteria. Far better that people die, I guess.
Some people want the rewards of progress, without any of the risks. Life doesn’t work that way, but most are easily led. The public schools have trained them to be.
Heinlein had it right.
Avila will not win any journalism awards since he is quite obviously an idiot, and a lazy one at that.
However, after doing serious damage to a reputable company and its employees, he will continue on his merry way with absolutely no consequences.
That is what pisses me off.
Surely there’s a way to sue both the journo and his employer. ?!?!?!?
abc , reporting this as rowing without cox and clear it is.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/olympics/sexual-arousal-potted-baked-goods-olympic-scandals/story?id=16929529#1
Scummy, guiltless, self-effacing reporters, consensus media & networks are the reasons SDA has 29 million hits.
You may be led by by nose or by your mind.
You choose.
“I have as much love for MSM as 99% of SDA community, but I have to say that I am very uncomfortable eating meat trimmings heated and mechanically fat-reduced through centrifugal processing and then treated with ammonia.”
Hey, I agree it sounds revolting, but is it unsafe ( compared to?)?
I tend to agree there was a story here, but it was more of the “oh, wow: “dirty jobs” nature, than the ” OMIGHOD THEY ARE POISONING US WITH PINK SLIME” nature.
I’m sure if you went through the food industry step by step you find all sorts of places where one’s first reaction is more ew! than yum!
Your basic slaughter house for one. I’m not against it, but let’s face it, it’s not what you’d call photogenic. Taking a soon to be dead animal and making chops and roasts from it is, well, it is what it is.
I’ve had occasion to walk through a chemical process factory where they make “artificial and natural flavours”, oh dear, you do not want to see that if you think aromatics are carefully extracted from fresh herbs and spices using age old technique and beautiful polished copper vessels. ( Think oil refinery, smells about as good.)
They’ll now have to raise more of those evil CO2 emitting cattle to produce an equivalent amount of beef, that journalist must be one of those AGW deniers.
more than 40 years ago I did a stint at a major chain foodstore in the meat department. As the “hamburger boy” I had to go around to all the butchers tables and collect the trimmings. I then ground them , if the result was too white ,I would go to the back and bring out bull meat , which was perfectly good in terms of protein in fact it was purest lean meat almost the colour of deep mahogany. I would grind it twice , and then grind the result again with the trim grind to make “regular” ground beef. it was the most popular product, though our family never bought it again.
Sue him?
I say, organize the people who lost their jobs to camp in front of his house with pitchforks and bonfires and DEMAND that Avila lose his job, like yesterday!
Redneck – don’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia. Since anyone can edit Wikipedia articles, the ” pink slime ” article was probably written by a radical whose loyalty to the truth comes second to achieving political power.
Journalists keep making up the food scares, as they get large readership, and possibly even a book deal from them.
The most troubling trend in recent times has been a steady erosion of journalisms integrity.
Journalism is to integrity as slime is to pure water.
The former makes one sick unto death. In this case destroying families jobs. If it was dangerous fine & good . How do we know though, from DDT to the Ozone layer from Global warming co2 none sense to pesticide lies from a chemical called Alar (Which almost destroyed California crops) they do nothing by lie with sensationalism. You can only count on the MSM to lie or take political Marxist stands.
Unless their a Mark Steyn ( Into realism with reality) or some few others of like disposition, these socialist clowns wouldn’t know how to spell integrity , let alone have a clue what it means.
“I love my steak and AAA Alberta beef as a whole, thank you very much, but try to stay away from ground meat.”
Right on. Because everyone knows that a steak comes from the supermarket, not the slaughterhouse. After all, we have all driven by steak farms where t-bones grow on vines and porter house on trees. And, of course, leather products(such as shoes) comes from the shoe store, not some dead animals carcass.
Why don’t you go down to the abbatouire and pick up your steaks.Maybe they will even let you fire the gun that kills the cow. Or perhaps you could slit its throat so it bleeds out.
A*shole.
Redneck said: but I have to say that I am very uncomfortable eating meat trimmings heated and mechanically fat-reduced through centrifugal processing and then treated with ammonia
Why?
Because someone told you you should feel “icky” about it?
They manipulated your aesthetic sense with trickery and loaded language, to produce that effect.
(As Fred said, it’s safe to eat – indeed probably safer than butcher-ground meat as a whole – in that the “pink slime” process and factories are reputed to be staggeringly sanitary.
The trivial exposure to a tiny amount of ammonia is precisely to sterilize the meat, exactly the way it’s not sterilized in normal grinding processes.
They handwaved and said “ammonia” and described it as “slime”, and now you swallowed their goal, hook, line, and sinker.
Stop it.)
Stop falling for it – fight back.
(You don’t eat sausages, do you?
Well?)
They eat big fat worms in Africa you know. While still alive. Now thats Icky!!!!
Redneck;
As a former lab tech at O meats in Saskatoon years ago, I had access to every area of the processing plant, testing fat content including hamburger and hotdogs, yum, as well as the killing floor and tanning room.
Your a%# is sucking slough water.
What would you have them do with trimmings, throw them out and see your food costs rise as a result?
Liberals everywhere.
Jim
Revnant Dream @ 5:53, you are right that this is what much of journalism has become. It is sad when the 4th estate becomes the 5th column.
Journalists! We hates them precious. False! Nasty sneaky lying tricksters.
“The most troubling trend in recent times has been a steady erosion of journalism’s integrity.”
Personally I think the most troubling trend was that people thought journalists had any integrity to start with.
How soon they forget William Randolph Hearst, most famous for making up stuff on the front page as a policy, not by mistake. Secondly famous for having a really useless grand daughter who got pardoned by not one but two of the most useless @$$h0les ever to be President of the USA.
Journalism- providing job opportunities for the 1st quartile.