On February 19th you'll remember I challenged the AP's Nairobi, Kenya
Bureau Chief to take a close look at the reporting on mercury coming out of her bureau. If I could be so presumptuous to characterize my outreach to her, I would say I was thorough and courteous yet firm in expressing our concerns. That was nine days ago and today when I reached out to her I got an out of office memo saying she'd be gone until March 9th.
Pehaps our concerns are not a priority for her.
The star stuck New York Times is out shilling for Jeremy Piven. The Old Gray Lady appears to be smitten with the actor, perhaps that's why it's the only paper reporting that Piven, "convinced a group of fellow actors that he did not violate his contractual obligations when he dropped out of the Broadway play "Speed-the-Plow."
Hollywood blogs are a buzz this morning as actor Jeremy Piven has his quasi day in court-also known as a hearing before the Actors' Equity committee. You'll remember producers filed a grievance against Piven saying they didn't believe his outrageous and scientifically flawed claims that he came down with mercury poisoning from eating fish and therefore couldn't finishing out his contract in a play titled Speed the Plow.
There are four things I would like to share with you all about the Associated Press.
I was pleased at the speed and professionalism with which it corrected its mistakes just 2 weeks ago.
The mercury-warning-signs-on-seafood crowd has pulled a David Hasselhoff.
Monday's edition of the Bradenton Herald in Bradenton, Florida offers us evidence educated health professionals are getting the message that inflated concerns about mercury in seafood have been over-stated for years and are now passing along word that the latest science shows the greatest risk, when it comes to seafood, is not eating enough.
It would appear from published reports that our new President is committed to working to reduce or even eliminate mercury pollution. This is good news. An aggressive, science-based approach to cleaning up the environment is something everyone welcomes.
I don't know if any of you saw this misguided mess on U.S. News and World Report's site, but a blog called Fresh Greens claims to be looking out for consumers by naming 10 risky foods. Unfortunately she didn't risk doing much research:
In my last entry about the obvious problems found in a recent Associated Press article I noted that I had actually been fairly pleased with the recent state of reporting on seafood. As an example I noted that Reuters had editorially mismanaged a story about Alaska pollock a few months ago but after some prodding, reviewed their own work and corrected the record.
