To: Doctor Nancy Coppola, PTC 601 Students
From: Daniel Aalderks
Date: March 29, 2012
Subject: Evaluation Memo on Pink Slime (Assignment 9)
As per your instructions for assignment nine for the week of March 26 through April
1, 2012; I am sending you and my PTC 601 classmates this memo that evaluates the
credibility of the Internet articles “Partners in ‘Slime’” written by David Knowles
and “Hall: ‘Pink slime’ not based on facts” by Fred Hall. These two articles present
opposite findings on the recent public and media debate on the health concerns of
lean beef trimmings, or ‘Pink Slime’ as it has become popularly known as.
This memo will be gauging the authority, accuracy, audience, objective, currency,
coverage, and overall quality of the articles for evaluating the previously listed
sources and their value for presenting information about ‘Pink Slime’ beef.
Overall, I felt more comfortable reading the information in the Times Record News.
They seemed to know more about what they were doing and their webpage was
designed to present me with the news, local to national. The Daily seemed to use
their articles to promote themselves on Facebook and Twitter. To make an allusion
to the articles subject, The Daily’s website was a very lean trimming where the
Times Record News website was a whole cut. The following sections will go into
further detail about what I found when comparing both articles.
Authority
We will begin by looking at the authority behind both articles. The “Partners in
Slime” article is written by David Knowles, a reporter for The Daily for over a year
and a contributing writer for The Hollywood Reporter according to his LinkIn
account. He is listed as being a professional writer since 2006. After an Internet
search, The Daily is owned ultimately by News Corp, however I cannot find a direct
link or message stating that in the article site. Also, the only way to contact the Daily,
is through an impersonal and categorized email service. It took some digging, but I
found the mailing address of The Times as well as some additional contact
information, including a phone number.
Evaluation Memo on Pink Slime (Assignment 9)
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Phone
number for a
employee.
An example of
a physical
mailing
address.
In contrast Fred Hall’s is not listed at the Times Record News website as a current
staff reporter, however he does have a profile article that shows he has experience
in reporting, education, and agriculture. I felt he had the right background for
dealing with the material and that he could present it in the right way with the
needed sources for the reader.
Accuracy
There is a lot of contrast between the facts presented in the two articles. The Daily’s
article has a number of unsubstantiated facts and ominous sounding quotes, but not
much fact. The article mentions scientists were ‘pressured’ to allow LFTB being
approved, and that the head of the USDA had ‘deep ties to the beef industry’.
One thing that stood out to me was that when the article says: “A baseline study
conducted by Zirstein and Custer classified the trimmings as a “high risk product.”
Zirnstein says the food inspection service ignored their findings, and commissioned
a separate study to assess the safety of BPI’s meats. “ What does a “high risk
product” mean, and what did the separate study conclude; and if different, why was
it wrong?
The Times Record News article, however, featured a lot of verifiable facts about the
beef industry, processing methods, and even chemical information relevant to the
subject. It also features an outside expert to verify the process BPI uses is safe.
Audience
This was a hard category to judge as the audience of both sites differs only by
geographical region. The Daily began life as the world’s first iPad only news site
where as the Times Record news looks to be a local news publication serving
Wichita Falls, Texas and the surrounding area, approximately 105,000 residence as
of the last census. I believe it is safe to say The Daily commands the larger but
broader reader base. While The Daily does not have a ‘hit’ counter, over three
thousand people have ‘liked’ the article to Facebook.
Evaluation Memo on Pink Slime (Assignment 9)
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Objectivity
Both articles have their primary expert. The Times article’s primary source is a
representative from BPI who makes the ‘pink slime’, this source is obviously not
going to speak out against his own companies product. However, the Times article
has some other sources and does seem to have some private investigation as well.
The Daily’s article has two microbiologists who seem to offer fewer facts than what
you would expect an expert to offer in this type of article. They do give some good
quotes though, that seem to be intended to sway opinion, but do not offer much to
back it up.
The Times had three advertising articles while the Daily had one for downloading
the Daily but there were multiple places to reference the article on Twitter or
Facebook. The Daily really seems to want you to share this article where the Times
is has a minimum of advertising that is at the top of the page, right side, and far
bottom of it.
Currency
Both articles seem to be similar in regards to currency with one key exception. Both
articles are fairly recent, having been written in the last month. Neither page seems
to have been updated recently, but there are some links to seemingly new articles
on both sites.
The difference I saw was that while the Times links lead to articles their text
indicated, the Daily’s links on its right sidebar lead to a Facebook page asking me to
subscribe to the Daily.
Led to a Facebook
subscription page.
Not what I wanted to
read.
Coverage
Evaluation Memo on Pink Slime (Assignment 9)
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Both articles seem to clearly indicate where the text of the article comes to an end,
usually with the authors name or copyright information; The Daily’s article has a
poorly titled video with no description at the bottom indicating what its purpose is. I
actually thought the picture was the beginning of the video until I saw the small
caption at the bottom of the screenshot. Also The Daily has no available method to
print the article. Since this publisher is meant as an iPad only publication this might
be acceptable, but it would still be nice for use regular Internet users.
Link to a video related to
the article.
Not the video.
Description of the photo
I thought was the video.
Quality of the Article
The Times webpage was laid out well for navigating to what section of the website I
wanted in a news website. I could find where the business section, classifieds, or
weather with no problem. Everything seemed easy to navigate and I clearly knew
the purpose of the page and where all the links lead.
In contrast, The Daily did not have links to other articles that did not lead first to
Facebook. There was no way for me to know what other categories of articles they
had available except for their features. The links here just seemed to want me to
increase their subscription numbers, not keep me informed.
Evaluation Memo on Pink Slime (Assignment 9)
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