Time Magazine made a mistake when it put tuna on its Time.com top ten list of dangerous foods. Plain and simple it made a mistake. We pointed that out to editors and mangers and in two rounds of extensive corrections it tried to remedy the mistake. The piece went from a seafood scare story to three relatively accurate sentences that failed to live up to the hyperbole in the headline (oh… and Time even changed the headline.)
Despite all the errors and all the changes Time refused to simply remove tuna from its list of dangerous foods. So, as promised we brought in legal counsel to make sure the venerable news magazine understands in no uncertain terms that it has officially been made aware of the facts about tuna and going forward any reporting that contradicts those facts will be considered a willful disregard for the truth and subject to legal action.
It’s a rather sad day for Time when a lawyer’s letter has to alert the magazine to the fact that printing falsities or a reckless disregard for the truth constitutes "actual malice," which moves a story from the newsroom to the courtroom.
Have a look at our letter concluding this matter:
