Philadelphia's NBC10 television news has an interesting interpretation of justice: you are guilty until proven...well, you are just guilty, period. Why let the facts get in the way of a good investigation?
My name is Richard Woldow, and I approved this column. You might not know exactly who I am if you watched NBC10's Consumer Alert on March 31. Tracy Davidson identified me as the owner of Warehouse Outlet market. I'm not. They aired edited comments I supposedly made about Warehouse Outlet products. I didn't. And the investigative work gets worse from there.
Her Consumer Alert Team thought they had a great scoop. They discovered that Warehouse Outlet, a department in my Quakertown Farmers Market, carries some grocery products past their printed "sell-by" dates. Of course, the 3000 customers Warehouse Outlet serves every week have known it for years. They come to buy those items, from carts and bins in the aisles, at rock bottom prices. Great savings, fast sellers.
Warehouse Outlet is registered with, and inspected by, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, as a Salvage Retailer. Overcode items are about 10-15% of the business. PA Ag actually inspects the boxes and bottles and cans in the store. The overcode products are perfectly safe for consumption. The U.S. Department of Ag says so, right on its website. Food producers say so on their websites. Even NBC10's sister, MSNBC, says so on its website.
But the big-city Team didn't ask any questions. They never heard of a Salvage Retailer. They never checked with PA Ag. They never consulted the experts. They assumed wrongdoing, and came out with guns blazing. We accuse you. PROVE TO US YOU ARE INNOCENT! And do it immediately, or we will tell the NBC-watching-world you are Guilty!
The final nail - NBC10 wanted to confront the owner, Tom MacDonald. Try to provoke a reaction on camera. Watch him squirm as television justice is served. So they called him on a Friday, and gave him an ultimatum: we tape you on Monday. Tom told them he would be in Florida the next week. Their answer: The story airs Wednesday with or without you. Guilty!
Since Tom was going to be away, and Tracy's Team was insistent, I went the 50 miles to the NBC10 studio to explain the situation. I brought them Warehouse Outlet's PA Ag certificate. And manufacturers' information off the Internet about product shelf life. And a printout of the MSNBC's website listing the shelf life of many products. And the names and addresses of several other salvage grocers in the Philadelphia area.
What did Tracy think now? Don't know. She gets the publicity, but didn't actually do the investigation. It was handled by her producer, Branden Bissinger. So, what did Branden know about Warehouse Outlet? Registration and inspections? Nope. PA or US Department of Ag? Nope. Manufacturers' statements about shelf life? Nope. Gee, Investigator Bissinger, what DO you know? How much information do you actually gather about a business before you attack?
Well, someone (she won't say who, of course) emailed her about the overcode products. And the infamous "hidden camera" showed they were there. That's it. Case closed. Guilty! But now she actually SEEMED to have second thoughts. With no Tom available, she asked if I would do an interview instead.
I told her that I really had no background in that area, being a landlord and not a grocery store owner, but I agreed to repeat for the camera WHAT MSNBC SAID ON ITS WEBSITE. That overcode products can be safe for months, or years, beyond their sell-by dates. My interview lasted about 20 minutes, and consisted almost entirely of my reading from, and referring to, the MSNBC website, and applying their guidelines to the products found by NBC10.
According to MSNBC (and many other sites), all of those items were well within manufacturers' guidelines. Legal. Safe. Wholesome. Shoppers could save a great deal of money if they understood product coding. Branden thanked me, and said she would call before the story aired.
I'm still waiting for that call. And, in fact, the story did not air for another nine days. NBC10 apparently was willing to postpone the broadcast for their own reasons, but would not grant the same time to Tom MacDonald, the expert in his own field, to return and defend himself. Guilty!
Not surprisingly, the edited story had no relation to my interview. It identified me as the owner of the grocery store. There was no mention of the Ag registration and inspections. There was no mention of the MSNBC website. The interview was edited to about 30 seconds, and made it look like my comments were personal excuses.
In a final irony, according to MacDonald, NBC10's own hidden camera clearly shows their investigator taking a package of sliced turkey from a FREEZER CASE, where it had been, duh, frozen. The MSNBC website states in bold letters "Once a perishable product is frozen, it doesn't matter if the date expires because foods kept frozen continuously are safe indefinitely". The Consumer Alert broadcast omitted these small details.
On a newsday when 4 Americans in Iraq were killed and dragged through the streets, OPEC cut oil production by 4% to send gas over the $2/gallon mark, and a man was found guilty of killing 6-year-old Destiny Wright, NBC10's newsbreaks throughout the evening were about Warehouse Outlet, calling it a "dirty little secret".
You decide who is Guilty.