Reporters

• Diane Sawyer

Media History

The reporting was intended for these media types: Television

Additional Resources

• "ABC's Food Lion Story Didn't Sully Journalism" - Michael A. Cooper - New York Times
• "Why Those Hidden Cameras Hurt Journalism" - Paul Starobin - The New York Times
• "Trash Tort or Trash TV?: Food Lion, Inc. V. ABC, Inc., and Tort Liability of the Media for Newsgathering" - Charles C Scheim - St. John's Law Review
• "In Greensboro: Damning Undercover Tactics as 'Fraud'" - Russ Baker - Columbia Journalism Review
• "Apologies to ABC, Producers" - IRE Journal Staff - IRE Journal
• "The Lion's Share" - Marc Gunther - American Journalism Review
• "What Is Really Rotten in the Food Lion Case: Chilling the Media's Unethical Newsgathering Techniques" - Lori Keeton - Florida Law Review
• "Food Lion Stock Falls After Report" - Unsigned - The New York Times
• "Food Lion Slows Expansion in Wake of TV-Report" - Unsigned - The New York Times
• "Rivera Sees Bad News From ABC Penalty Pioneering Reporter, TV Execs Call Food Lion Case Rotten for Journalism" - Richard Huff - Daily News
• "Critic's Notebook; Repercussions of Getting a Story by Sneaky Means" - Walter Goodman - New York Times
• "Editorial Notebook; Revisiting the Food Lion Case" - Terry Tang - The New York Times
• "Practicing Deception in the Pursuit of Truth" - Marvin Kalb - The Washington Post
• "Media Talk; Journalists Defending the 'How' In Their Work" - Felicity Barringer - The New York Times
• "Food Lyin' and Other Buttafuocos" - Sandra Davidson - IRE Journal
• "Expanding Dangers" - Sandra Davidson - IRE Journal
• "Getting the Truth Untruthfully" - Colman McCarthy - The Washington Post
• "Beyond ABC v. Food Lion" - Walter Goodman - The New York Times
• "The Long-Awaited Food Lion Ruling" - David B. Smallman - IRE Journal
• "Honoring the best in investigative journalism" - 1992 IRE Awards - IRE Journal

Effects and Outcomes

The broadcast had immediate and deleterious impact on the business prospects of what then was the nation’s fastest-growing supermarket chain. The company’s stock price plummeted; a shareholder filed suit. Unrelated adverse publicity came down from a federal Labor Department case on allegations of child labor and overtime violations at the stores. By Christmas, the company had slowed expansion plans and two weeks after that announced it would be closing eighty-eight stores. The broadcast resulted in a protracted lawsuit against ABC -- not for libel, but for what it alleged were wrongs committed during the newsgathering process—fraud, trespass, unfair trade practices, and breach of the duty of loyalty. The legal case waged on for seven long years. In the end, ABC lost on tresspass and breach of duty of loyalty, but it won in another sense. From an initial damage award of $5.5 million—with its potentially chilling effect on other media companies contemplating aggressive reporting of this nature—the amount was progressively decreased, first to $315,000 in punitive damages plus a small compensatory amount, then ultimately down to a symbolic penalty of a dollar on each of the two charges. Apart from the legal matters, the Food Lion investigation did earn journalistic recognition and was honored by a 1992 IRE Award for Investigative Journalism.

• "Food Lion" - Diane Sawyer, host - ABC Prime Time Live

  November 5, 1992
  Original Broadcast of the Food Lion segment on ABC's Prime Time Live, November 5, 1992.