Where's the Beef? 'Mad Cow' Coverage No Longer Hot

Posted Tuesday, March 14, 2006 12:00 am

By: E&P Staff Mad cow disease is no longer front-page news at many leading newspapers, a survey by Reuters' Bob Burgdorfer has discovered, in looking at Tuesday coverage of the latest discovery.

The U.S. Agriculture Department on Monday said a 10-year-old beef cow in Alabama tested positive for the disease. The two previous U.S. cases were in Washington state in December 2003 and in Texas in June 2005.

"The focus right now is on avian flu. Mad cow has taken a back seat," said Harry Baumes, an agricultural economist at Global Insight, an economics information analysis services firm.

Reuters found that The Wall Street Journal carried the story on page 2.

USA Today ran a short story on page 9 of the front section. (It ran a short bird flu story on page 6.) The New York Times ran its mad cow story on page 19. The Chicago Tribune: page 6. The Washington Post: page 3. The Los Angeles Times: page 17.

There has never been a human case of the disease in the United States.

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Where's the Beef? 'Mad Cow' Coverage No Longer Hot

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