Categories: OLD Media Moves

ABC News settles “pink slime” lawsuit with beef producer

ABC News and a South Dakota meat producer announced a settlement Wednesday in a $1.9-billion lawsuit against the TV network over its reports on a lean, finely textured beef product that critics dubbed “pink slime.”

Timothy McLaughlin of Reuters reported, “BPI had claimed that ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co, and Avila defamed the company by calling its ground-beef product ‘pink slime’ and making errors and omissions in a 2012 report.

“The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. BPI attorney Dan Webb told Reuters the settlement came together ‘quickly this week,’ but declined to provide further details, citing a confidentiality agreement signed by both parties.

“BPI’s signature product, commonly mixed into ground beef, is made from beef chunks, including trimmings, and exposed to bursts of ammonium hydroxide to kill E. coli and other contaminants.

“‘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,’ South Dakota-based BPI said in a statement.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.