Taking the Time to get the story right
Wednesday,24 February,2010 11:17:09
When I think if Time magazine, or even Time.com for that matter, I don’t think of agenda-driven hacks or sloppy sensationalists trying to outdo the competition. I think of solid journalists who, for the most part, let their work speak for itself. Time is after all home to the always anticipated Person of the Year franchise and a stable of well respected writers.
That’s why I was so disappointed to see a whole slew of journalistic failures associated with Time.com’s article on the “Top 10 Most Dangerous Foods.” You can read my letter to the magazine’s brain trust here.
The gist of it is that somehow editors who had apparently fallen asleep at the switch printed an erroneous diatribe about “Tuna Terrors” that not only botched the facts but contradicted Time.com’s own reporting in 2008 under the headline “The Danger of Not Eating Tuna.”
This is a quintessential example of the need for the seafood community to stand up for itself when reporting goes awry. This is not a case where we simply disagree with the reporting. It is a case where Time.com is wrong and it needs to correct the record. This is not a case of big, bad industry complaining peevishly about a story that painted it in an unfavorable light. This is a case of Time overtly exaggerating, misreporting and contradicting its own work.
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Examining junk journalism
Tuesday,23 February,2010 10:27:01
Examiner.com is an interesting publishing model that hints at the future of journalism; citizen reporters lending their eyes, ears and expertise to an evolving, organic news site. But what can sound good in theory can go completely off the tracks in practice. The proverbial inmates are running the asylum over at Examiner.com and its coverage of seafood science is evidence of that.
A week never goes by without NFI having to endure another epic of distortion from Examiner.com. “Examiners” like Amy Jenkins, who is not a fisheries scientist, a doctor or a dietitian but a writer for the Sierra Club, regularly launch into distorted rants about which fish you should or should not eat to stay healthy.
Jenkins, like so many before her, is an environmental activist, not a public health advocate. Her misguided conflation of EPA and FDA mercury standards is classic activist rhetoric that ignores the conclusion of the FDA's “Report of Quantitative Risk and Benefit Assessment of Consumption of Commercial Fish” and turns a blind eye to the independent Harvard University study published in the Journal of The American Medical Association that clearly found, "the benefits of fish intake exceed the potential risks.”
The overwhelming majority of science finds the benefits of eating seafood and high omega-3 fish, like canned tuna, outweigh any concerns associated with the trace amount of methyl mercury found in fish. Real scientists know this and real editors ask questions of their writers. Until Examiner.com starts asking questions in pursuit of the facts it will continue to relegate itself to the pile just south of junk science called junk journalism.
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Seafood: setting the record straight
Wednesday,17 February,2010 16:43:59
When half-truths, misstatements and flat out errors about seafood make their way into the press, you’re likely to read about it on this blog. When a new study in the world of seafood science is making waves with the media, there’s a good chance I’ll mention it. And when someone gets a fish story right, I’ll let you know about that too.
With this blog, the National Fisheries Institute hope to change the dialogue that often accompanies stories about seafood. It’s no longer about whether we like or agree with a story. It’s about whether reporters and producers are following the basic journalistic tenets of fairness, balance, objectivity and above all, accuracy.
No threats, no rants, no pretense — just a statement: When it comes to reporting about seafood, it’s time the media got the science and the story right. And when they don’t, we’re gonna call ‘em on it.
The old saying, "never pick a fight with a man who buys his ink by the barrel" doesn't apply anymore - these days it's bandwidth not barrels that matter.
So, let’s make a deal, shall we? If the media will stick to being honest and impartial, seafood will stick to being healthy and delicious.
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