Determination
135
Minnesota
News Council
In the matter of the complaint of the Gold’n
Plump
Company against WCCO-TV
Background
WCCO-TV, the CBS-owned station in the Twin Cities, broadcast a story
on December 9, 2002 suggesting that chickens sold by companies such
as Gold’n Plump could be dangerous to eat. One reason: bacteria
in chickens treated with antibiotics develop resistance to those drugs,
sometimes rendering the same drugs ineffective in treating human beings
who get sick from eating those chickens.
Complaint
Gold’n Plump, represented by Dan Jacobson, a public relations
manager, said that the report was: 1) inaccurate, 2) unbalanced and
3) sensationalized. The company said the news report gave a false
impression that it was dangerous to eat chicken sold by such companies
as Gold’n Plump.
1) The company said that the WCCO report failed to note that proper
cooking destroys bacteria and that antibiotics used in the raising
of chickens vanish from their system days before they come to market.
2) The company said the story lacked balance because it was based
purely on a press release from the Institute for Trade and Agriculture
Policy (IATP), which the company described as an advocate of organic
foods and a critic of corporate farming and the brand-name food industry.
Jacobson said that the St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper had, by contrast,
balanced the IATP data with information from a half-dozen varied sources.
3) The company said that WCCO-TV’s story deliberately twisted
facts in the IATP press release to scare the audience.
Response
WCCO-TV did not attend the hearing, but the station did submit as
a response a letter it had written to Gold’n Plump. The letter
said the story informed the public about the risk of contracting infections
from bacteria in poultry. The station also said it confirmed data
it cited from the IATP release with scientists from the University
of Minnesota.
(Gold’n Plump noted that the station did not identify those scientists
by name.)
Deliberation
Public member Larry Kuusisto, a health care consultant, said that
WCCO-TV unfairly set viewers up to fear antibiotics in chickens and
then ended the story with comments attributed to Gold’n Plump
and another company, Jennie-O, that made them seem defiant.
Public member Chris Gade, a communications manager at the Mayo Clinic,
said it bothered him that the station relied on a study that was not
reviewed by scientific peers and that the story featured a single
source, the IATP researcher.
Some members observed that the story was produced on the same day
the IATP news release arrived at the station, yet was presented as
the result of an I-Team investigation. The story relied on the news
release, one interviewed source and stock footage of chickens and,
some members said, did not rise to the level of an investigative report.
That kind of packaging of a story, they said, appeared to be intended
to give weight to the report that it did not merit.
News Council members needing technical guidance were able to rely
on information provided by three scientists invited to the hearing
as expert witnesses. They were not allowed to express any opinion
on the quality of the journalism. They were: Dr. William Hueston and
Dr. David Halvorson of the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary
Medicine and Assistant Professor Jacqueline Jacob of the University’s
College of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences.
Vote
Members upheld the complaints unanimously.
February 20, 2003
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