Hawthorne

Our friends tell us a lot about who we are. Here's an example, Jackie Savitz over at Oceana is now on Twitter. She's a well known environmental activist who doesn't obscure the causes she supports or the campaigns she runs. She and I don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues but such is life. I know basically where she stands on certain things and generally we disagree-- nothing wrong with that.

It's a question perhaps best answered by his bosses, and we're sending them a letter asking just that. We'll let you know what they say. But while they ponder that query let's take a look at his latest Chicago Tribune article titled Mercury-tainted fish on FDA menu. The very first paragraph is quintessential Hawthorne; a mix of distortion, opinion and poor (if not absent) sourcing.

It wasn’t long ago that we told you about some questionable standards at the Chicago Tribune and how the official

Here's the latest on our contacts with the Chicago Tribune. I wrote to the Standards Editor Margaret Holt  last week to make sure she had received my pervious emails and was aware of my continued request for review of Mr. Hawthorne's work. That was just about a full week ago. My letter to her can be found below.

Still no word from the Chicago Tribune on our multiple requests for a review of Michael Hawthorne's latest story about mercury in seafood, so let's continue to look at some of his previous work.

In 2005 environmental reporter Michael Hawthorne published a series of sensationalized stories about mercury in seafood that ran under the shocking headline "The Mercury Menace" and warned of the "Toxic Risk on Your Plate" while insisting that the Government and industry were failing to protect consumers. It would appear that Mr.