Is it time to start spotting news bias trends for 2007? Maybe. All I know so far is:
Bird flu stories seem to be out. What's in? "What you don't know about your chicken might ill you.*"
You can read my full BMI article here:
"Is there a dirty bird on your dinner plate," wondered CBS anchor Katie Couric as she hatched a brief and biased news item centered around a new Consumer Reports study on chicken.
"Bad news," "Evening News" correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi summed upon the December 4 program. Consumer Reports magazine found that the chicken on your dinner table is "dirtier than ever."
Alfonsi aired a clip of a researcher for the publication, Urvashi Rangan, complaining about an "astronomical rate of pathogen contamination." While Alfonsi did concede that the bacteria is killed when chicken is cooked properly, she added that scientists such as Rangan want "more testing" on poultry.
That’s not all Rangan and her employer demand of the poultry industry, however.A USA Today report by Elizabeth Weise in the December 5 paper quoted Jean Halloran of Consumers Union, which publishes the magazine, saying that more regulation by the government is “beyond overdue” and that the government is “not doing any testing at all.”
It’s not just Rangan’s boss who has an agenda when it comes to the food industry. Far from being a dispassionate scientist, Rangan has a bone to pick with the food industry. In a March 2005 interview with the online environmentalist magazine Grist, Rangan was asked what “one environmental reform” she could “institute by fiat” if she had the power.
In her answer, Rangan complained about the "economics in this country" being "all about the bottom line." The director of the Consumer Union’s Eco-Labeling Project added that “each hamburger sucks up a half-gallon of gasoline” and that chickens are fed arsenic to get them "fatter faster." Rangan suggested "tax incentives for companies and people who make better environmental choices."
While arsenic is administered in chicken feed, it’s not merely to plump up a bird. It also helps to ward off bacterial infection, Virginia Tech’s Susan Trulove noted in an Oct. 10, 2005, item for that university’s news service.
*only if you don't cook the chicken properly.
—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters
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Comments Policy
Is this part of the thinking
December 5, 2006 - 14:00 ET by FastEdIs this part of the thinking that ALL food is bad? How many people are dying because of tainted food? Could those deaths have been avoided, if the consumer wasn't so stupid to cook week old chicken?
I say, let's get the govenment involved in EVERYTHING! More tests, more insurance, more regulations. "A government inspector in every house!" In fact, let's have everyone get the same pay, no matter what they do - that's equality, and by government fiat! No more repsonsibility! No cares, worries! Nothing! and that's what liberalism will get you - NOTHING!
There is no sense in being stupid, if you can't prove it! - my dad
It's amazing that we surviv
December 5, 2006 - 15:28 ET by RightWiredIt's amazing that we survived for tens of thousands of years without the left to protect us.
RightWired.
"How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin." - Ronald Reagan
Well, I guess I am a dead man
December 5, 2006 - 20:44 ET by BufordWell, I guess I am a dead man! The house I grew up in was painted with lead based paint, the crib rails I teethed on were painted with the same paint. The gas we put in our cars had lead in it, I even swallowed some siphoning gas for my car. We ate food that some government inspector didn't ok for consumption. We played out in the sun without sunscreen every day. We ate, and still do, steaks off the grill. When the mosquito fogger came thru the neighborhood, we liked to ride our bikes behind it (without helmets), great fun!
Newsbusters it has been a great ride but I must go dig my grave........DAMN! and I'm only 65!
Buford....Don't feel like the
December 5, 2006 - 21:02 ET by bigtimerBuford....Don't feel like the 'Lone Stranger'!...
You've got plenty of company that should of dug our own graves and been in the grave by now according to the environ's and the rest of the leftist government.....
The Sky is Falling!!!!
Woe is me!
"Once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again." - Grover Cleveland
BT, I've decided to outlive t
December 5, 2006 - 21:10 ET by BufordBT, I've decided to outlive the whole bunch and p..s on their graves. Polution be damned.
I'm with ya Buford buddy....a
December 5, 2006 - 21:22 ET by bigtimerI'm with ya Buford buddy....a lot of us out here are!
"Once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again." - Grover Cleveland