By Patrick Fitzgerald and Jacob Gershman
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the US print
edition of The Wall Street Journal (June 29, 2017).
ABC News has reached a settlement with the maker of a
processed-meat product that critics dubbed "pink slime," bringing
an end to a defamation lawsuit that threatened the network with
billions of dollars in damages.
The settlement, the terms of which weren't announced, comes
about halfway through a jury trial that was expected to last about
two months and brings to a close a high-profile legal test of
so-called food-libel laws intended to shield the food-production
industry from bogus food-safety scares.
Beef Products Inc. sued ABC News, anchor Diane Sawyer and
reporter Jim Avila in 2012 for $1.9 billion, over a series of
stories about its lean, finely textured beef product -- or LFTB,
what critics dubbed "pink slime" -- claiming it was the victim of a
journalistic hit job that harmed its business.
A judge dismissed the claims against Ms. Sawyer before the start
of the jury trial, which began earlier this month in South
Dakota.
Due to a South Dakota food-libel law that provides for triple
damages against those found to have knowingly lied about the safety
of a food product, ABC News was facing, potentially, $6 billion in
damages.
Beef Products, a family-owned South Dakota meat processor, said
in a Wednesday statement the settlement validated that lean, finely
textured beef, made from defatted beef trimmings in a process
involving ammonium hydroxide, was safe.
"While this has not been an easy road to travel, it was
necessary to begin rectifying the harm we suffered as a result of
what we believed to be biased and baseless reporting in 2012," Beef
Products said. "Through this process, we have again established
what we all know to be true about lean finely textured beef: it is
beef, and is safe, wholesome, and nutritious."
ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co., denied that it had reported
anything about the beef that it knew to be a lie and had contended
Beef Products was trying to punish it for making reasonable
editorial judgments.
"Throughout this case, we have maintained that our reports
accurately presented the facts and views of knowledgeable people
about this product, " ABC said Wednesday in a written statement.
"Although we have concluded that continued litigation of this case
is not in the Company's interests, we remain committed to the
vigorous pursuit of truth and the consumer's right to know about
the products they purchase."
The case went to trial at a time when major media outlets are
under more public scrutiny and contending with what polls show to
be declining trust of mainstream journalism. Beef Products, during
the litigation, decried ABC's coverage of its company as "fake
news," a term widely used to describe fabricated internet reporting
that has broadened in use since the 2016 presidential election.
BPI's lawyer, Dan K. Webb, said despite what he called "ABC's
30-day media attack" five years ago, the company's legal team was
able to get across to the 12-person jury that lean finely textured
beef was safe.
"We didn't use the term 'fake news' with the jury because we
didn't need to," said Mr. Webb of the law firm Winston &
Strawn. "We got across to the jury that lean ground beef product
was safe and it was healthy."
In 2012, lean, finely textured beef, or LFTB, was found in about
70% of the ground beef found on supermarket shelves. ABC didn't
coin the term "pink slime," but it exploded on social media after
the broadcasts. "It took BPI 30 years to build up the success, it
took ABC 30 days to destroy that by rebranding the product as pink
slime," said Mr. Webb.
Beef Product's battle followed a string of other high-profile
legal clashes involving the media. Gawker Media was forced into
bankruptcy last summer after it lost an invasion-of-privacy suit
brought by the former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan. Rolling
Stone magazine last year lost a libel lawsuit related to a
discredited 2014 story about an alleged fraternity gang rape at the
University of Virginia. And just this week, former Republican Gov.
Sarah Palin sued the New York Times for defamation over a recent
editorial.
ABC's first segment on the product, in March 2012, opened with
Ms. Sawyer telling viewers: "A startling ABC News investigation, a
whistleblower has come forward to tell consumers about the ground
beef a lot of us buy at the supermarket. Is it what we think it
is?"
In the report, Mr. Avila described the company's meat product as
pink slime made from "beef trimmings...once used only in dog food"
and "sprayed with ammonia to make them safe to eat and then added
to most ground beef as a cheaper filler."
In the ensuing weeks, ABC followed the segment with several more
broadcasts and more than a dozen online stories about the beef,
reporting on the fallout for Beef Products.
Beef Products claimed ABC News whipped up the controversy about
the meat product to boost ratings, inflaming consumers' fears that
forced it to close three of its four plants, erasing hundreds of
jobs when consumers recoiled.
The company filed suit later that year, accusing ABC of creating
a false impression "that BPI's product was not beef or meat, had
little or no nutritional value, and was not safe to eat."
Those three BPI production plants remain closed, but the company
said it hopes to rehire the laid-off employees and bring the plants
back online if the market for LFTB recovers.
--Joe Flint contributed to this article.
Write to Patrick Fitzgerald at patrick.fitzgerald@wsj.com and
Jacob Gershman at jacob.gershman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 29, 2017 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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