By Zach Weigel
You may recall the “pink slime” outcry that transfixed the nation a few years ago. But what you may not know is that Beef Products Inc., a South Dakota meat processor, sued ABC News for what it claimed as “biased and baseless” vilification of pink slime. Moreover, Beef Products claims ABC’s popularization of the term “pink slime” and negative slant was ultimately responsible for an 80 percent decline in revenue, causing the layoff of 1,300 employees, including 200 in Waterloo.
One should care about this case, because it illuminates the burden facing the news industry.
Defamation, and even the mere allegation of defamation, can hold vast ramifications. There is no way to prove that ABC’s coverage of Beef Products and bastardization of pink slime led to the company’s downfall. There is, however, a reasonable argument to be made that ABC’s coverage did harm the company’s reputation by vilifying chemically treated packaged beef products as “pink slime,” a gross, unsafe food product. Hence, both sides have a seemingly solid case, yet ABC chose to settle the case privately for an undisclosed amount rather than carry on with the legal proceedings for damages that could have approached $6 billion.
Clearly, news outlets and journalists have to tread lightly on sensitive topics or risk being sued for defamation. If a news organization bends the truth or is selective in its presentation of the facts, it is glutton for punishment, so to speak. The recent firing of three CNN journalists and retraction of a story linking the Trump administration to collusion with Russia further highlights how important it is for news to be accurate and fair.
More to the point, John Oliver of HBO’s show “Last Week Tonight” has been sued on more than one occasion for his satirical reporting. For instance, in his most recent episode, Oliver cast a negative light on Robert Murray and his coal company only to be sued the day after by Murray for defamation.
Oddly enough, Oliver even acknowledged during the show that Murray would likely sue him, evincing that Oliver was very well aware that attacking Murray could have consequences. With this in mind, Oliver took every precaution to evade defamation by sticking to provable facts and offering counterarguments to his jabs at Murray. Nevertheless, Murray still sued him for defamation. Whether anything will come of this case is yet to be seen. Merely that Oliver and the show are being sued is telling.
So what do all these examples tell us about the news industry? For starters, it proves that the onus is on the news outlet/journalists to report only facts, because quasi-facts or alternative truths can get them sued. What is more, as Oliver found out, even when taking precautions, one can end up on the receiving side of a lawsuit. And the ABC/Beef Products case suggests that sometimes it doesn’t matter if journalists actually bend the truth, simply being sued can lead to a settlement in an effort to save face and avoid further legal proceedings.
Thus, in today’s profit-driven corporate news industry, news outlets are between the proverbial rock and a hard place. They must tread lightly when critically reporting because of the possibility of being sued for defamation while balancing the temptation to produce sensationalized, click-bait type of stories that will garner viewers/readers.
As the cliché goes, with great power comes great responsibility. For the news media, this means they must use their power to influence public opinion responsibly. Therefore, the media must abide by the rule of presenting stories using only fact, free from framing, and then hope they don’t get sued anyway.