You might remember about a month ago Reuters published a poorly sourced article filled with inaccuracies about Alaska pollock that was based on an erroneous Greenpeace press release. Of course we called Reuters on this issue and as it turns out so did the At-Sea Processors Association and the Genuine Alaska Pollock producers. Objectivity and accuracy in reporting about seafood is a concern shared by the entire seafood community. And in this case making that concern known and our collective commitment to seeing the truth about seafood in print was recognized by Reuters’ management.

The editors directed the reporter to write a new piece on the true state of the Alaska pollock stock and the results were night and day. For instance, the original article began with this sentence:

• “Stocks of Alaska pollock, a staple of the U.S. fast food industry, have shrunk 50 percent from last year to record low levels and put the world’s largest food fishery on the brink of collapse, environmental group Greenpeace said on Friday.”

The rewrite began with this sentence:

• “Declining stocks of Alaska pollock mean officials are likely to scale back 2009 catch limits for the largest U.S. fishery next month but scientists insist stocks are not in danger of collapse.”

Greenpeace was pedaling false and misleading information that made its way into the hands of a reporter who didn’t do the necessary leg-work to find out that it was activist rhetoric and not scientific fact. But in the end the folks at Reuters did the right thing.

It’s important to use this episode as an example of an instance where we didn’t just “not like the story” or “disagree” with the writer– the work was factually flawed and needed revision. We pointed that out using a strong foundation of journalism tenets as the basis for our argument and fair editors with a reasonable approach and solid understanding of journalism ethics responded.