Why ABC News Settled a Multibillion-Dollar Suit Over ‘Pink Slime’

Faced with a potential $5.7 billion verdict, ABC News last week settled a lawsuit brought by a South Dakota meat company objecting to negative coverage of a beef product critics have called pink slime. The pact — the terms of which were kept confidential — came in the middle of what had been scheduled to be a long trial.

The beef industry prefers to call the additive in question “lean, finely textured beef,” or LFTB. It’s made from fat trimmings containing bits of meat, which are heated and spun to separate out the beef. Small amounts of ammonia gas are ...