Topic: Media Research Center
Dan Gainor's title as the Media Research Center's T. Boone Pickens Fellow doesn't mean he's limited to shilling for the oil industry -- he'll also do PR work for the meatpacking industry too.
Which seems to explain Gainor's March 23 MRC column defending "pink slime" -- a meat byproduct used as a filler in ground beef. His column is headlined "ABC Takes a Pro- E-Coli Position in Hit Job on Meat Industry." That's right -- according to Gainor, if you don't like "pink slime," you're a lover of deadly bacteria.
Gainor serves up this benign description of the byproduct:
The meat, often called lean finely textured beef, is made up of beef that is just harder to get at, so the meat isn’t lost. It’s treated to get rid of the fat and included with the rest of the ground beef. The USDA declares it healthy, but it is less expensive. As an added bonus, it is treated tiny amounts of ammonium hydroxide to make it safer to eat. But network broadcasts and activist videos act as if this treatment is somehow bad.
You know what else contains ammonium hydroxide? Household cleaning products and furniture stain. Gainor doesn't mention that. Nor does he mention that, while the USDA considers the byproduct as generally safe, the scientist who coined the "pink slime" term points out that it apparently has never been specifically approved for use in ground beef.
Instead, Gainor rants that ABC, by promoting the story, "is out to destroy a family owned business to push the agenda of a couple of 'whistleblowers' who don’t like the company’s beef ," dismissing one of them as a "loony activist" while not backing up the insult.Gainor also touted how " The International Association for Food Protection gave its singularly best award – called the Black Pearl Award" to the company that makes "pink slime."
Gainor goes on to attack the media in general: "Major media have attacked a long list of industries in recent years – coal, oil, guns, Wall Street, banks and more. Each time, they savage an industry, they do it for ratings, never caring what damage they do to a company, shareholders or employees who might soon be looking for work." This from an employee of an organization that manufactures controversies over museum art it doesn't like.
Gainor even complains that an ABC commentator has advised viewers to limit their intake of red meat to six ounces a week over two servings: "When’s the last time someone dealt you just six ounces of red meat in a week – or in one sitting. The ABC food police think they know better than you what you should eat and how much."
Dietary advice is "liberal bias" too? We had no idea.
