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CapitalPress.com
July 7, 2017
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approved by members of the
Capital Press Editorial Board.
All other commentary pieces are
the opinions of the authors but
not necessarily this newspaper.
Opinion
Editorial Board
Editor & Publisher
Managing Editor
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com Online: www.capitalpress.com/opinion
O ur V iew
‘Pink slime’ case a lesson for food campaigners
I
n a small town, you can always
tell when court is in session:
The pinstripe suits and pairs of
shiny shoes outnumber the seed
company hats and work boots.
That was the case last month
in Elk Point, S.D., population
1,940, which played host to one of
biggest media trials in U.S. history
— the case of the “pink slime.”
Pink slime became part of
the public lexicon five years ago
courtesy of ABC News, which
embraced it as a name for lean
finely textured beef. Known by the
initials LFTB, it is made from beef
cuttings with the fat taken out and
is mixed in hamburger to reduce
the fat content.
The company that makes lean
finely textured beef, Beef Products
Inc., sued ABC and its reporter,
Jim Avila, for $1.9 billion alleging
that their series of reports shed a
false and defamatory light on the
company’s product and forced it
to lose 80 percent of its business,
close three of its four plants and
lay off 700 employees.
The stakes were huge. Under
South Dakota law, damages can be
tripled in such cases. That meant
ABC was potentially on the hook
for as much as $5.7 billion.
ABC, which is owned by the
Walt Disney Co., found itself in
the uncomfortable position of
defending itself not in a New York
City or Los Angeles courtroom,
Lean finely textured beef produced by Beef Products Inc.
but in the Union County, S.D.,
Courthouse. The basement was
pressed into service as a makeshift
courtroom because the usual
venue was too small to seat all of
the lawyers, jurors and observers.
Some legal experts had
predicted that BPI and its owners
would probably get rolled by
the high-powered lawyers ABC
brought to town for the trial. They
said the First Amendment of
the Constitution protects news-
gathering organizations such as
ABC. Moreover, they said in
cases such as this, BPI would have
to prove a legal concept called
“actual malice,” meaning that
ABC and Avila knew what they
were reporting was false or that
Associated Press File
they had a reckless disregard for
whether it was true.
As reported in the Sioux Falls,
S.D., Argus Leader, BPI’s lawyer,
Dan Webb, told the court that
ABC, Avila and others used the
term “pink slime” 350 times in
131 TV and online reports and
on social media. They called it a
“cheap filler,” insinuating that it
was somehow unhealthful. They
pounded away at the message for
days.
When BPI offered ABC more
information to correct the reports,
it was rebuffed, according to
Webb.
Though it met the standards of
the USDA, lean finely textured
beef apparently did not meet the
standards of ABC.
During the trial, BPI’s lawyers
raised the question: Was ABC
merely reporting a news story, or
was it doing something else?
“I find it fits the definition of a
‘public communication campaign’
quite well,” Kimberly Neuendorf,
a communications professor at
Cleveland State University and an
expert in “content analysis,” said
during the trial in a story reported
by the Sioux City Journal.
The drumbeat was picked up
by ABC’s fellow travelers in the
media and on social media. “Pink
slime” was soon the top search
term on the Google search engine,
the professor said.
As a result, BPI lost business,
closed plants and laid off
employees. Against the ropes
financially, the company filed suit.
The trial was supposed to last
four weeks. On the 18th day,
as BPI’s lawyers were about to
rest their case, the trial came to
an abrupt halt. Judge Cheryle
Gering announced to the crowded
courtroom, “The case is over.”
BPI and its owners, Eldon
and Regina Roth, had reached a
settlement with ABC. An ABC
spokeswoman described the
settlement as “amicable” but did
not say how much money ABC
will give BPI or any of the other
terms related to that amicability.
At the same time it appeared
Readers’ views
Numbers make
story more
personal
I am an engineer and
mathematically
inclined
— I more or less grew up
on the Judd Smith farm on
the bank of the Willamette
River eight miles south of
Corvallis on the road to
Monroe.
And my God, I do love
your newspaper! You are so
fine.
I am writing about the
article, “Duck eggs fill mar-
ket niche,” I found it inter-
esting. I love the personal
coverage the Capital Press
gives such efforts. You are
definitely not an “indus-
trial management” kind of
newspaper.
The duck egg story has
some holes in it. I was in-
terested enough to turn to
the internet to see what I
could find. The internet
says that where a chicken
lays — in real-world terms
— three eggs in four days,
a duck will lay one egg in
that same four-day span.
I know these are the pur-
est of ballpark numbers, but
I’m a ballpark kinda guy.
So 365 days in the year
divided by “an egg every
four days” gives you 91 egg
production days from a sin-
gle duck per year. (1 duck
equals 91 eggs/year).
Well good, Anthony
Bordessa has 2,800 ducks
so that multiplies out to
254,000 duck eggs per year.
He prices them by the doz-
en, so 254,000 equates to
21,233 dozen. And he sells
a dozen eggs for $8, so An-
thony’s gross from eggs is
$169,866.
Male ducks, and ducks
past their prime, he would
handle as a slaughter and
sale profit center. The mar-
kets to which he sells eggs
would happily resell the
meat, offsetting such nega-
tive accounting numbers as
the “cost of effecting prod-
uct sales.”
As a separate agricultur-
al operation, he would raise
and harvest his own feed
requirements.
Now let’s go back to
the numbers — say that in
four days a chicken will lay
three eggs and a duck one
egg. Chickens therefore
out-lay ducks by 75 per-
cent. But the Capital Press
reports through the USDA
that large buyers are paying
$1.10 a dozen for chicken
eggs.
Thus a dozen duck eggs
at $8 are commanding a
little over seven times the
chicken egg price.
Now, even though these
are wildly “ballpark num-
bers,” that’s interesting.
With the additional num-
bers that I’ve worked out,
the story became more in-
teresting and “personal” to
me.
And, my God, I do so
love your newspaper.
When I see the Capital
Press in mailbox, I smile.
My goodness, if I were
younger and lived back up
in Oregon I’d want to write
for you.
Judd Smith
Berkeley, Calif.
Renewable Fuels
Standard should
be protected
Please stand with me and
ask our Oregon representa-
tives in Washington, D.C.,
to protect the partnership
between fuel and agricul-
tural by preserving the
Renewable Fuels Standard
(RFS) as is, without chang-
es.
With so many policies
up for debate in Washing-
ton, D.C., it’s easy to miss
important ones that impact
the agricultural industry.
One of the efforts now un-
derway is designed to un-
dermine the RFS. These
modifications could have
significant effects on the
ethanol industry, U.S. ag-
riculture, and our ability to
remain economically com-
petitive as a nation.
Too often, time and fi-
nancial commitments silo
our thinking to the prob-
lems of our personal farms
and commodities. Farm-
ing is no longer the isolat-
ed experience of a family
working their own parcel
of land. Global markets are
changing, and American
families are increasingly
insisting on foods that are
locally sourced and respon-
sibly managed. It is critical
to our success as an agricul-
tural community to have the
ability, as caretakers of the
land, to be flexible, to max-
imize yields, to repurpose
waste, and to provide a sus-
tainable model for success.
Ethanol production rep-
resents one of the key out-
lets farms have to diversify
their markets and maintain
a stable income. It’s not just
about growing fuel or feed.
With ethanol and biodies-
el, the byproduct after fuel
production is a valuable
feedstock for cattle. This
provides farms greater flex-
ibility, more opportunities
to cut costs and a diversi-
fied portfolio of products to
offer.
For the good of the agri-
cultural community, I urge
Oregon leaders like Con-
gressman Greg Walden to
please join us in protecting
the partnership between
our industry and Oregon
biofuel leaders like Pacific
Ethanol. We must continue
to bring long term fuel in-
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vestments in America and
uphold the Renewable Fuel
Standard.
Jim Harris
Retired Wheat Grower
Pendleton, Ore.
Clean energy a
viable alternative
Regarding the article,
“Hard Choices Loom As
Farms Exit Conservation
Program” published June
30. Thank you for your
comprehensive, balanced
and insightful article on the
looming impacts to Ore-
gon farmers as CRP leases
expire later this year. The
“math problem” that you
described makes it hard to
think about the impacts on
wheat farmers in the region.
The stakes are much
higher now, however, than
they were when those lands
were originally put into the
federal Conservation Re-
serve Program. Returning
those lands to tillage means
losing topsoil, as well as the
beneficial impacts on water
retention and water quality
in this high desert of Ore-
gon.
I’d like to see someone
run the numbers on alterna-
tive crops for the affected
lands, especially the most
economically sound crop
for the 21st century: clean
energy. As U.S. public
opinion and common sense
pressures the largest carbon
polluters in the country —
coal-burning power plants
— to retire and replace
their harmful units with
renewable energy, it seems
logical that the farmers, the
utilities and the earth can
all have a win-win-win sit-
uation.
Collectively, let’s fig-
ure out how to help our lo-
cal farmers turn their CRP
lands into wind or solar
farms. The technology ex-
ists, it’s cheaper than ever,
and the Northwest has al-
ready shown leadership to
the rest of the country with
our commitment to both
sustainable economies and
sustainable energy. Let’s do
the “simple math” on the
opportunity that is right in
our backyard.
Mimi Haley Edwards
Damascus and
Fossil, Ore.
ready to write a check to BPI,
ABC continued to say it stood by
its story.
There’s a lesson to be learned
from this case. It’s straight out
of a Journalism 101 course.
Journalists have rights under the
Constitution, statutes and case law
to report issues of general public
interest as accurately and as fairly
as they can. But when reporters
— or anyone else — set out on a
“campaign” to destroy a product
or a company while ignoring the
other side of the story, they have a
problem.
These days campaigns against
various foods, crops and other
products are commonplace on
social media and the internet.
These campaigns are neither
fair nor accurate and are only
meant to perpetuate a certain
drumbeat and promote a book
or viewpoint. Facts or opposing
viewpoints are not allowed.
ABC has learned the difference
between journalism and “public
communication campaigns” the
hard way. Hopefully, other self-
appointed “campaigners” will take
that lesson to heart.
The pinstripe suits and shiny
shoes have now left tiny Elk Point.
We can only assume some of their
wallets were thinner as a result
of their visit to town, and that
they had learned a valuable lesson
about journalism.
U.S. ag needs common
sense regulatory reform
By ROBERT GIBLIN
For the Capital Press
I
n mid-May, a Senate
committee advanced its
version of the Regulatory
Accountability Act, a bill that
will benefit U.S. agriculture by
making federal agencies more
accountable and transparent in
rule-making.
Under the RAA, feder-
al agencies must provide the
public with more informa-
tion regarding the most costly
regulations before initiating
rule-making; undertake a cost/
benefit analysis; select the most
cost-effective approach; con-
sider reasonable alternatives to
proposed rules; and use the best
scientific, technical and eco-
nomic information.
RAA would prohibit agen-
cies from using social media or
engaging in propaganda to lob-
by the public, as the Environ-
mental Protection Agency did
when introducing its Waters of
the U.S. rule.
If enacted, this bipartisan
legislation would be the most
significant regulatory reform to
the Administrative Procedure
Act since it was first passed in
1946. The APA drives federal
rule-making but was enacted
prior to the creation of federal
agencies and laws that have
profound effects on agriculture,
including the Environmental
Protection Agency, Clean Wa-
ter Act, Clean Air Act, Endan-
gered Species Act, Occupation-
al Health and Safety Act, and
the Food Safety Modernization
Act.
The needs, magnitude and
impacts of federal regulations
are strong reasons for reform
of the APA, as are other social
factors, including the roles of
activism, court litigation and
social media in influencing
regulations.
Some critics have said
that the legislation will be too
cumbersome and, ultimate-
ly, would prevent agencies
from issuing rules. On the
contrary, the RAA will apply
only to major new rules that
have more than a $100 mil-
lion yearly impact. It also re-
quires hearings on rules with
more than a $1 billion annual
impact, but limits the scope of
hearings to genuinely disput-
ed facts.
To look at the RAA in con-
text of past regulations, its
standards would have applied
Guest
comment
Robert Giblin
to about 2.2 percent of the
more than 47,500 rules put
in place since 2001. Anoth-
er analysis conducted by the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
showed that of the 32,882
agency regulations issued
between 2008 and 2016, less
than one-half of 1 percent
would have been subject to
any RAA provisions, and only
one-tenth of 1 percent would
automatically be subject to
RAA because they would im-
pose more than $1 billion in
costs.
Ironically, with current
political pressure to eliminate
or roll back regulations, RAA
doesn’t discriminate or dif-
ferentiate between regulation
and deregulation — it applies
to both. It potentially could
reduce the likelihood of reg-
ulatory swings that could be
created by policy preferenc-
es of ever-changing political
majorities.
Even with changing polit-
ical majorities, the need for
transparency, sensibility and
consideration of the econom-
ic costs have been recognized
and reflected in executive
orders about regulatory plan-
ning, regulation and review
issued by Presidents Reagan,
both Bushes, Clinton and
Obama. RAA codifies many
of the best practices for analy-
sis in rule-making enunciated
by presidents from both major
parties.
Farmers
and
ranch-
ers believe regulations are
needed to protect public
health, food safety, work-
er safety, environmental
quality and market fairness.
They also believe the regula-
tory system needs to be fair,
transparent and faithful to the
will of Congress, cost-effec-
tive and respective of free-
doms. The voices of those
affected by rules should be
heard and respected in the
rule-making process. Reform
is long overdue.
Robert Giblin writes,
speaks and consults about
agricultural and food industry
issues, policies and trends.
This column is courtesy of
the American Farm Bureau
Federation.