Kate Pinkerton

Recently, it was discovered that a peanut plant in Atlanta, Georgia had poor practices that led to an outbreak of salmonella that killed 8 people and made hundreds of people sick. This news was everywhere- in newspapers, on television, and therefore, on the lips of many people. Our food system is so complicated now that if even just one plant is tainted, thousands of products could be affected.

Many of the news sources first stated that there was a salmonella outbreak, but they were unsure of the source. On January 10th, 2009, the Associated Press released a national briefing stating that “Federal officials have not yet identified the cause of a salmonella outbreak striking almost 400 people in 42 states, but state officials in Minnesota said they believed peanut butter might be involved.” Eventually, they linked it to the plant in Georgia. The problem I have is that I did not hear much about the salmonella until it was linked to peanut butter. Does this mean that the press was informed of the outbreak, but did not want to release information and scare the public until an answer was close? Or was it the researchers who were not releasing information? Basically, ever since the closing of the plant in Georgia, the peanut story has been on almost every episode of the evening news and in multiple articles in newspapers. This may be because peanut butter is something that almost everyone eats in America, and would cause an uproar.

According to a US News online article, Barack Obama wants to make sure that federal information is more transparent, like the status of a salmonella outbreak from the FDA. Once the outbreak was linked to peanut butter, the FDA did a great job of listing products that were contaminated on its website, as well as updating people via twitter.

In the average newspaper story or nightly news, they emphasize the politics of the issue. They want to know who is in charge of testing for salmonella, who let the peanuts continue to be shipped, and what the FDA is saying. On Tuesday night, they emphasized that yet another plant run by the same company was being shut down due to similar contamination issues. These national news sources emphasize what is wrong with the overall system of food testing and government regulation.

However, a very local paper, like the American University Eagle, emphasizes very different aspects of the story. It answers of the questions of when peanut butter will return to campus, how the campus was affected, how students feel about the lack of peanut butter in the cafeteria, and how the food officials on campus are handling aspects of the situation. Many students miss their peanut butter, but understand that its absence is a precaution they are willing to take. Even though I live off campus and do not go to TDR anymore, I'm really glad our paper took a local jab at a national problem.

More emphasis should have been put on the universities and care facilities that were the largest recipients of the tainted peanuts. Instead, they focused on what consumers would get off the shelves, even though most of those products were okay.