ABC’s Diane Sawyer asks that ‘pink slime’ case be dismissed
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — ABC anchor Diane Sawyer, correspondent Jim Avila and the network are asking a South Dakota judge to dismiss a $1.2 billion defamation lawsuit over the network’s reports on a meat producer’s lean, finely textured beef product, which critics dubbed “pink slime.”
Court documents filed this week provide detailed accounts from Sawyer, Avila and others about how they gathered the information for the reports on Beef Products Inc. and also defend their work, arguing it was done in the public’s interest as consumers were unaware that the product at the time was present in 70 per cent of the ground beef sold in supermarkets.
To make lean, finely textured beef, the trimmings left after a cow is butchered are heated, the meat is separated from fat and ammonia gas is applied to kill bacteria. BPI’s lawsuit, filed in 2012, claims ABC’s multiple reports misled consumers into believing that the product was unsafe and led to the closure of three plants and roughly 700 layoffs. The network, Sawyer and Avila — the only three remaining defendants in the civil case — deny that claim.
The case is currently slated to go to trial in June. BPI could be awarded as much as $1.2 billion.