Beef Products Inc., the meat company accused of putting “pink slime” in their ground beef, is currently suing ABC News for $6B, citing defamation and disparagement after losing almost $2B on the heels of a 2012 exposé.
Yeahh… “pink slime” is ringing some bells
“Lean finely textured beef,” as it’s formally known, is a low-cost filler made from leftover cow trimmings sterilized with ammonia which, according to ABC at the time of their report, was used in “70% of ground beef found in supermarkets.”
A national backlash led schools, grocery chains, and even McDonald’s, to stop buying the slime-meat, forcing BPI to close down 3 plants and lay off 700 workers due to the dip in demand.
Sucks for them, no question, but do they really have grounds for a multi-billion dollar lawsuit?
Depends on your definition of “malice”
To win the defamation case, BPI will have to prove that ABC acted in “actual malice” against them in their reporting — as in, some type of Thiel-level grudge motivating their story.
Don’t know about you but it seems like ABC News was just doing their job — reporting the news. Ya know, because they’re a news team. And if reporting facts is malicious, consider us Miles Davis.
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(via The Hustle)
