Earlier today it was announced that an arbitrator had ruled in favor of Jeremy Piven and the Actor’s Equity Association in the dispute over his abrupt departure from the Broadway production of David Mamet’s “Speed the Plow.”

Despite the fact that the arbitrator ruled in Piven’s favor, NFI cautions reporters and editors to continue to treat Piven’s statements with skepticism. It is important to note that no peer reviewed medical journal has ever published any evidence of a case of methylmercury poisoning caused by the normal consumption of commercial seafood in the U.S. This ruling does not change that simple scientific fact. It is also important to note that Pivenpreviously claimed to havebeen diagnosed withtheEpstein-Barr virusduring the first week of rehearsals, a claim that has curiously be absent from most news coverage.

While some may be buying his story peer-reviewed medical science isn’t and it’s not clear the Hollywood press is either with headlines like this:

Unimpressed With Jeremy Piven, Nation’s Seafood Industry Strikes Back; “Word to Piven, don’t go fishing anytime soon. These people have your number.”

Piven’s Fishy Excuse Gets Him Off the Hook; “Jeremy Piven is once again free to pursue a career as a thermometer.”

Jeremy Piven Celebrates Victory Over Evil Mercury-Loving Broadway Producers

Seafood Group Skeptical of Piven’s Claim

Piven’s Ex-Assistant Calls “Bulls**t” on Mercury Poisoning

When I think of The Economist I think of cerebral types who get it. But it looks like even highbrow intellectuals can demonstrate a poor judgment and even poorer execution when writing about seafood. The latest fish tale titled Hold The Sushi misses the mark so badly it’s, quite frankly, disheartening. If The Economist wants to continue to claim it’s the, “leading source of analysis on international business and world affairs” it might want to consider raising its standards a bit. Our letter is below:

August 27, 2009

John Micklethwait

Editor in Chief

The Economist

Via Email

Dear Mr. Micklethwait,

I am writing to bring to your attention concerns about The Economist’s reporting on a new United States Geological Survey (USGS) study concerning mercury in fish. The reporting used in production of this story ignored basic journalism tenets and serves unfortunately to confuse readers about the study rather than inform and educate them.

The very start of your report is in error. The title “Hold the sushi” suggests that the following reporting will in some way refer to fish or seafood used in sushi; it does not. The report ostensibly covers the USGS study, a study that does not involve fish used in sushi. I will assume your reporters are familiar with Mercury in Commercial and Sport-caught Fish: Apples and Oranges, “…there is no new news to share about mercury in fish. Mercury is a naturally occurring metallic substance. Minute quantities of mercury are in air, water, soil, and all living matter. The study confirms what has been known for years – that mercury is ubiquitous.”

The UC Davis white paper also draws attention to your reporter’s lack of understanding about the differences between recreational and commercial fish, including their respective mercury standards and the levels at which they are consumed by Americans. Further along in paragraph four, your reporter writes that “mercury levels are high in marine fish.” Nowhere does your reporter even attempt to explain the fact that the FDA and EPA employ distinct standards for mercury in commercial seafood and recreational fish. EPA’s recreational fish standards are meant to be protective of recreational, tribal, ethnic, and subsistence fishers who typically consume fish and shellfish from the same local bodies of water repeatedly over many years. The FDA action level defines the extent of contamination at which FDA may regard seafood as adulterated and represents the limit at or above which FDA may take legal action to remove products from the marketplace, and includes a 1,000% built in safety factor.

Still in paragraph four, the reporter mentions a previous USGS study that she and I spoke specifically about. She notes that it forecasts rising mercury levels in the Pacific Ocean. I specifically explained to her that that study did not in any way test or refer to fish. That was a water study not a fish study. Independent studies clearly show that despite ebbs and flows in mercury levels in ocean water the amount of mercury in commercial seafood has remained steady for decades. She was made aware of this and chose not to report it.

In paragraph five she writes, “consumers are now trying to understand how the USGS study’s findings should influence their eating habits.” During our conversation I explained to her that recreational and subsistence fishing in internal streams makes up such a small amount of the fish consumed in this country that it is almost incalculable, yet she insisted on suggesting “consumers” broadly are now utilizing the study to drive their eating habits. She then uses ABC’s Good Moring America as an example of a popular news program covering the story. She fails to note an important point contained in that coverage and is ignorant of ABC’s corrective work done on the accompanying online piece.

First, in asking an ABC News medical contributor to read a statement provided by the National Fisheries Institute Dianne Sawyer says, “This is key. Heads up everyone.”

• “It is important to note that this study is not about commercial seafood but recreationally-caught fish; not the kind Americans are likely to find at their grocery stores or restaurants.”

Secondly, the 25 paragraph online piece that accompanied the television broadcast was edited down to 18 paragraphs after Christopher Francescani, senior producer for Good Morning America digital and Greg Macek, ABC News attorney, reviewed concerns NFI had with, among other things, the very melding of commercial and recreational fish in its reporting.

Still in paragraph five your reporter allows, from the way her reporting reads, apparently the only person she interviewed for the article to defame the tuna industry completely unchallenged. Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group claims in your publication that the FDA has “historically been in the pocket of the tuna industry.” NFI is eager for The Economist to explain how a reporter can allow that type of unsubstantiated statement to go completely unchallenged.

For starters, we would like your reporter to explain the specifics, including evidence presented, of said allegation and explain why, despite being contacted for this article, NFI was not allowed to respond to such a false and defamatory statement.

Thank you for your timely attention to letter. We look forward to your response.

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

cc Frank Quigley

Last week Greenpeace’s outgoing Executive Director admitted that the once-revered eco outfit lies as a matter of strategy, this week it… lied some more. According to reports, here it is along side the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan suggesting tuna could be, “wiped out by 2048.”

If you work anywhere near fisheries science or even anywhere near seafood and you have been certified by doctors as currently alive and conscious you know that 2048 statistic has been debunked by the very scientist who came up with it.

So, either Greenpeace is once again strategically distorting facts in order to “emotionalize” the issue or it’s the only organization on earth that didn’t get the memo to stop using that statistic.

The Big Hollywood Blog has a Greenpeace feature today that is a must read. It includes a video clip from a BBC program in which the cornered Executive Director of Greenpeace squirms quite a bit before he admits that Greenpeace exaggerates and misreports as a matter of strategy. The outgoing Greenpeace honcho calls the tactic “emotionalizing issues” for the public.

When grilled about Greenpeace’s claims that we can expect an ice-free Arctic by 2030 because of global warming Gerd Leipold said, “I don’t think it will be melting by 2030. … That may have been a mistake.”

Our friends in the Alaska pollock community could tell us a thing or two about Greenpeace’s “emotionalizing” of “issues.” It wasn’t long ago that the eco extremists lied to anyone who would listen about the status of the pollock stock in order to raise money for the cause.

Is Greenpeace so arrogant it doesn’t realize the damage done to its already derisory credibility when its own head goes on TV and says “…what we have said, by in large, over the last 20 years I think was wise and was rational and reasonable… we as a pressure group have to emotionalize issues and we’re not ashamed of emotionalizing issues”?

Keep in mind this is the same group whose U.S. head, John Passacantando, told the Pittsburg Post Gazette in 2003, “there are many organizations out there that value credibility, but I want Greenpeace first and foremost to be a credible threat.” Then on his first day on the job the new U.S. chief, Phil Radford, made his willingness to work with industry known by threatening businesses, “you can either dance with corporations or dance on them.”

While groups like WWF and the New England Aquarium forge effective partnerships with committed industries that want to continue and improve sustainability efforts, Greenpeace publicly admits it lies to scare people, publicly announces it would prefer to be feared than be credible and publicly takes aim at the very stakeholders who have a great deal of sway on the issues they are most concerned about.

Greenpeace never ceases to amaze.

The U.S. Geological Survey is releasing a study today that “Reveals Mercury Contamination in Fish Nationwide.” And so it appears to be the case. No argument here. Nope. If that’s what their study shows, I have no reason to doubt em.

However it is extremely important to note that USGS did not test commercial seafood. USGS tested fish from “streams across the country.” Reporters who do an ounce of homework will quickly realize the commercial fish we enjoy in restaurants or buy in the grocery store do not come from streams. By in large the seafood Americans find on their plate comes from the ocean and or various types of aquaculture.

Reporters who suggest that this study in any way represents a health hazard for normal consumption of commercial seafood are either particularly unskilled at their craft (understanding and synthesizing accurate information) or are distorting the facts.

For those who rely on subsistence fishing or those who enjoy recreational fishing the report appears to highlight the need to check with local and regional fish advisories. But this is not a study that should have consumers in any way concerned about the commercial fish they regularly enjoy.

Least we forget it was in May that USGS released a widely reported on study about an apparent increase in mercury levels in the North Pacific that quickly became one of, if not the most misreported seafood stories of the year based simply on the fact that the report was not a study about seafood– in fact it didn’t even examine any seafood as part of its work– but journalists printed misinformed sound bite science from agenda drive sources that claimed USGS had found increased levels of mercury in commercial seafood.

I’ve already been contacted by one reporter this morning who, it would appear, was doing her homework-we’ll see how the rest of the day plays out.

Jeremy Piven is out talkin’ mercury poisoning again and, as usual, with shovel in hand he’s diggin’. This time Piven goes into his ignorant song and dance about only eating fish for 23 years and how he became ill bla bla bla -the same dribble that earned him ridicule in the Hollywood press and a heaping pile of lawsuit to go with it.

But then he drops this little nugget. Piven tells the reporter he was “diagnosed within the first week of rehearsal with Epstein-Barr (virus.)” That is of course before abandoning the play.

Among the symptoms he claims he had when he was laid waste by his dangerous fish diet were things like “fatigue.” Hmmm, a quick look at the symptoms associated with Epstein-Barr include “fatigue.” Why not blame that for his sudden departure from the play? Perhaps not exotic enough? Perhaps.

Remember a while back when actor Jeremy Piven bailed out on his Broadway contract and then claimed he had mercury poising from eating sushi? But he hadn’t quite done his research for that role because if he had he would have found that there has never been a case of mercury toxicity in this country from the normal consumption of commercial seafood-oops.

Human health case study Jeremy Piven now appearing in peer-reviewed medical journals world wide… not so much.

Anyway, from mediation to a law suit Piven can’t shake the fire storm his creative diagnosis has earned him. And now the Hollywood press is reporting Fish Jokes Cause Jeremy Piven Temper Tantrums. Apparently when lampooned by a fellow actor about the incident Piven went crazy about the sensitive nature of the issue not because his health was in such dire straights but because “I’m getting sued for that.”

I guess his financial health is more important than his actual health.

Really?

No not really.

But for months if not years NBC News has relied on an erroneous statistic that suggested the oceans would be empty of fish by 2048. A statistic that was in error, an error that NFI brought to NBC’s attention but instead of doing their due diligence in researching the evidence we provided them they sent us a statement that claimed the 2048 statistic was, “both a fair and accurate representation of fisheries and fisheries science.”

Well, as I have been telling them for months the statistic is not a fair or accurate representation of fisheries or fisheries science and last Thursday the original author of the statistic finally publicly agreed.

With that on that record I contact NBC’s Senior Producer for Standards and Practices as well as the Executive Producer of NBC Nightly News and reporter Anne Thompson. Here’s the email I sent:

From: Gavin Gibbons
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 3:01 PM
To: (NBC Universal)
Subject: RE: NBC Nightly News 04.20.09

Dear Ms. Meadows,

Per our past interaction on this topic please note this Associated Press story from 30min ago. This story reports, as I mentioned to you on April 23rd, that the author of the study you all referenced that suggested the world’s major fisheries would collapse by 2048 is publishing a new study tomorrow that states, as I stated, that fish stocks “won’t be disappearing after all” and “that our oceans are not a lost cause.”

I assume NBC will be reporting on this development.A development I mentioned would be happening and would stand in contrastto your network’s reporting nearly 4 months ago.

Gavin Gibbons

As best I can tell NBC News posted this Associated Press story on the statistical about face on its MSNBC website but did little else on the issue. Even the New York Times editorialized about it today reporting that fisheries were “Back from the Brink.”

NBC’s original response to NFI when we first told them about the problems inherent in reporting on this false static was both sanctimonious and in itself erroneous. Now, nestled high atop 30 Rock, it appears the peacock network is content to plug it’s ears, hum loudlyand go on about its business pretending it didn’t make a mistake and didn’t fail to research its story properly.

But we all know it wasn’t just a simple failure of research that put NBC in this position. We did the research for them and tied it up with a nice little bow.It was the worst kind of sensationalism that has permeated that newsroom. Even in the face of facts NBC decided the scary headline was more important than accuracy.

Oh and… we told ya so.

In 2006 marine ecologist Boris Worm of Dalhousie University suggested that the oceans would be empty of fish by 2048. His prediction made for good sound bite science and the media ran with it. The problem is his prediction was wrong. And now he’s admitted as much.

A brand new study published in the journal Science today finds Worm saying he plans to be “hosting a seafood party” in 2048 instead of mourning the loss of all marine ecosystems.

Alarmist media outlets that don’t do sufficient research but love a splashy headline and irresponsible activist groups that know good ole’ crisis raises good ole’ cash are on notice. Your one-time patron saint of sensationalism now says, “our oceans are not a lost cause.”

NFI looks forward to mainstream news outlets, like NBC Nightly News, reporting on this about-face after having perpetuated the statistic for so long. The Peacock Network even wrote to NFI on April 23 of this year to tell us it thought its continued reporting of the 2048 statistic was, an “accurate representation of fisheries and fisheries science.” This, despite the fact that NFI had provided examples where scientists from academia, the government and even environmentalists had acknowledged the statistic was erroneous.

Maybe NBC will report on today headlines like ones from South Cost Today; Seafood extinction fears unfounded, study finds, the Journal Science Press Release; New hope for fisheries, Associated Press; Fish For Dinner- Overfishing easing in some areas,even the New York Times; Having Fish and Eating It Too.

RIP 2048 Statistic.

At the first sign of even minimal apprehension about the state of any fish stock many environmental extremists go right to the only page they know in the Henny Penny playbook and scream-collapse.

Some, like Greenpeace, do it to raise money while others do it as a simple matter of routine-if there isn’t a crisis they’re not needed so let’s announce a crisis and then work backwards from there.

Apocalyptic warnings that fish farming was on the verge of wiping out British Columbia’s wild salmon fishery now appear to be an over reaction as news reports announce stocks are returning in abundance this season.

Reports now suggest it was warm water from the tropics that “hung around and did a lot of damage” was to blame for the earlier population drop. The region isn’t just seeing a return of salmon it’s seeing sardines, whales and “as the water temperatures have cooled” “all kinds of life.”