When the U.S.
Commercials for Tuna The Wonderfish are all over morning TV, prime time and cable shows. In case you haven’t seen all three versions of the new ad campaign have a look:
GotMercury? and the Sea Turtle Restoration Project are attacking the tuna marketing campaign, Tuna The Wonderfish. Their claims are flat out lies, and the people behind Got Mercury?
We saw some disturbing news come out of Plymouth, Massachusetts this week. The Boston Herald reported that 12 commercial fishing boats were vandalized with spray painted anti-fishing messages.
So many times we see main stream news media getting the story about seafood wrong. And now it appears the researchers and, for the most part, contestants on a new Fox game show have a better base of seafood knowledge than some network reporters we’ve come across.
This Holiday season it would appear Consumer Reports is re-gifting. Remember back in 2006 it did a story about mercury in canned tuna? Well, its latest scare story on canned tuna is simply a retread of that report and, not surprisingly, once again does a disservice to its readers by using tried and true tactics to exaggerate concern.
Our position on Got Mercury? has always been pretty clear: its misleading and misguided crusade is not designed to help consumers but simply to cause them to eliminate fish from their diet because of the organizations real concern over sea turtles (not public health.) That means some consumers, are missing out on the proven health benefits of fish—an affordable food that could help them lose weight and boost cardiac health.
Let’s start with a question. How do you produce a story about seafood from overseas, yet never leave the U.S.? I ask that because that is just what NBC reporter Jeff Rossen and producer Robert Powell did on the November 17 edition of the Today Show. The duo was full of accusations and innuendo but never bothered to actually investigate the story.
On this morning’s edition of the Today Show, reporter Jeff Rossen and producer Robert Powell appear to have willfully ignored evidence that imported seafood is safe.
Ignoring the Facts
It was two weeks ago that I blogged in defense of domestic catfish producers. I noted that a pointed allegation, published in Seafood Source, designed to smear the industry should have been attributed and took the import vs. domestic debate back into untenable territory. While it was far from Rodney King’s iconic request; “can’t we all just get along?” It was an attempt to take a stand against destructive tactics.
