LA Times: veggie free speech threatened

That's the gist of an editorial from the LA Times today. The editorial states that legislation introduced by a Thousands Oaks Republican state lawmaker Audra Strickland - which would allow growers to sue anyone who disparages their product - is an infringement of civil rights.
From the editorial:

Food libel laws started springing up after CBS' "60 Minutes" aired an episode in 1989 about the chemical Alar, thought to be a carcinogen, being sprayed on apple trees. Now 13 states have such laws, which got their first court test in 1996, when Texas cattle ranchers used the state's agricultural libel law to sue talk-show host Oprah Winfrey because she aired an episode critical of practices thought to increase the risk of mad cow disease. They lost the case. That didn't discourage Strickland, who introduced her bill after the state's growers were hit hard by an E. coli outbreak last fall traced to California bagged spinach. One of the purposes of the 1st Amendment is to encourage debate, and food libel laws would have a chilling effect on this speech. Though plaintiffs under Strickland's bill would have to prove that defendants knew their statements to be false, or acted with reckless disregard for the truth, the threat of a lawsuit alone is enough to discourage many people from speaking out.

There's a better way to protect farmers from rumors. After losing the Winfrey case, Texas ranchers set up a hotline for people to call if they heard anyone in the media trashing red meat. The offending radio or TV host is then hit with a flood of materials about the health benefits of T-bones. That kind of aggressive PR may not always be pleasant. But it's preferable to laws against criticizing your spinach.


TK: From a distant reading, I think the proposed law does go too far. I think most people are predisposed to believe the best about vegetables; there are no vegetable hate groups, are there? I think the aggressive and positive PR, as the editorial suggests, is more effective than the threat of a lawsuit.