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Someone on r/tea suggested updating the Celestial Seasonings (a tea brand) wikipedia page "to include the pesticide thing."

A Google search finds a response of Celestial Seasonings to these accusation, saying that the reports were "false and misleading."
Second, the only sites that came up aside from their page were The Examiner and Natural News.

I know Natural News is full of woo, but I do not know whether The Examiner is a reliable source? For what it is worth, here is the original claim from Glaucus Research.

Do the Celestial Seasonings teas contain dangerously high pesticide levels?

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    Which Examiner are you referring to? That's a fairly common name for a news source so without that information this really isn't answerable in the current state. Also, can you include links to the original claims? – rjzii Jun 29 '13 at 03:30
  • Google turns up [“‘Dangerously high pesticide levels’ found in Celestial Seasonings teas”](http://www.examiner.com/article/dangerously-high-pesticide-levels-found-celestial-seasonings-teas) by Roger Ziegler at Examiner.com. Based on their front page, it looks like tabloid-style news, with top stories like “Famous pill poppers: Celebs who had nasty addictions.” – Bradd Szonye Jun 29 '13 at 04:04
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    Are you skeptical that Celestial Seasonings contains pesticides, or are you skeptical that The Examiner is a reliable news source? I don't see anyone claiming that The Examiner is reliable, unless by their very existence, this claim is implied, in which case the Celestial Seasonings stuff is all irrelevant. – Flimzy Jun 29 '13 at 06:31
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    This should really be a question about the report from Glaccus Research and not the Examiner itself. If they properly sourced their article, even if they are "tabloidish" as a whole, the claim could in fact be accurate and the reputation of the Examiner is not going to affect that accuracy. – rjzii Jun 29 '13 at 14:02
  • This question should be on the tea, not on the websites reporting the news. I took the liberty of rewriting it, so that it is more on topic. Please change it back if you feel I changed the meaning too much. On a side note, the fact that a specific source is generally not reliable does not mean that everything they say is not reliable (and viceversa, we know many a Nobel prize who speak complete nonsense on certain topics...). If really you question whether that site is a good source or not, I would suggest to discuss that on [Meta](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/). – nico Jun 29 '13 at 14:16
  • Good points, all. I answered the question as originally asked, but you're right that the better question is about the tea story, and that reliability of news is a better topic for Meta. – Bradd Szonye Jun 29 '13 at 17:51
  • Now that the question has been edited, it's very subjective. What is a "high" level of pesticides? – Flimzy Jun 29 '13 at 22:58
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    @Flimzy: I don't think it is that subjective. I read it as higher then the general amount found in tea, possibly comparing it with whatever level the regulatory bodies retain as safe for human consumption. – nico Jun 30 '13 at 08:14
  • It's worth reading 1) the disclaimers at the start and end of the Glaucus Research report. 2) The Celestial Seasonings response. The style of coverage by the Examiner seems of little relevance (other than it's role in providing additional notability perhaps). – RedGrittyBrick Jun 30 '13 at 18:16
  • @nico: "Higher than average" or "Higher than any other brand" would be non-subjective. "High" is subjective. "High" by itself can be interpreted any way you wish, including "higher than average," "higher than any other brand," "higher than one other brand," "higher than the author thinks is appropriate," "higher than some official recommended concentration," etc. – Flimzy Jun 30 '13 at 18:29
  • @Flimzy: I added "dangerously" to the question then – nico Jun 30 '13 at 19:31
  • @nico: That's still pretty vague. Dangerous to whom/what? And by what measure? It's clearly not acutely dangerous in the dosage consumed in a or small number of cups, or the company would have been sued for selling poisoned food. – Flimzy Jun 30 '13 at 19:32
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    @Flimzy: that is what the answer should say. They contain x amount of the pesticide xyz which may be dangerous if you drink x cups a day for x years. As the Examiner's artile speaks about "Dangerously high levels" I think that is how the claim should be reported. A proper answer would have to deal with whether the dosage is dangerous and in which conditions. *Omnia venenum sunt: nec sine veneno quicquam existit. Dosis sola facit, ut venenum non fit.*. – nico Jun 30 '13 at 20:31
  • Discussion on [meta]: [Third-party edit to question invalidates accepted answer: What to do?](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2452/third-party-edit-to-question-invalidates-accepted-answer-what-to-do) – Bradd Szonye Jul 03 '13 at 23:24
  • I find two Greenpeace reports: pesticides in tea from India and from China. http://www.greenpeace.org/india/Global/india/image/2014/cocktail/download/TroubleBrewing.pdf and http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/Global/eastasia/publications/reports/food-agriculture/2012/Pesticide%20Hidden%20Ingredient%20Report%20Final.pdf – GEdgar Dec 10 '15 at 15:26

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Note: This answers the original question of whether Examiner.com is a reliable news source. Based on remarks made by an executive editor of The Examiner, the website is a less reliable source than a newspaper.

However, that is not a valid reason to reject a claim published by the source. Judging an article by the company it keeps is a fallacy and in this case is probably poisoning the well. As always, we can only judge the soundness of an argument according to its reasoning, premises, and evidence.

Examiner.com published the article “‘Dangerously high pesticide levels’ found in Celestial Seasonings teas” by Roger Ziegler on March 22, 2013. Their front page currently features celebrity news, emphasizing legal and drug abuse scandals.

Wikipedia describes Examiner.com as a fast-growing news network with a blog-like platform:

Examiner.com is a media company based in Denver, Colorado, that operates a network of local news websites, allowing "pro–am contributors" to share their city-based knowledge on a blog-like platform, in 238 markets throughout the United States and parts of Canada with two national editions, one for each country.

The domain was previously owned by The San Francisco Examiner, a daily newspaper that was the “longtime ‘Monarch of the Dailies’ and flagship of the Hearst Corporation chain.” Philip Anschutz of Clarity Media Group acquired the newspaper and domain in 2004, transforming both:

Under Clarity ownership, the Examiner pioneered a new business model for the newspaper industry. Designed to be read quickly, the Examiner is presented in a compact, tabloid size without story jumps. . . . By February 2008, the company had transformed the newspaper's examiner.com domain into a national hyperlocal brand with local websites throughout the United States.

Clarity Media Group sold the newspaper in 2011 but still owns the website.

Wikipedia notes several issues with Examiner.com, especially:

  • accusations of plagiarism and poor editorial oversight in 2007,
  • substandard pay for some contributors, and
  • a 79% drop in search traffic credited to Google tuning out “content farms” in 2011.

Some of these criticisms predate the website's current incarnation. For example, the plagiarism claims stem from an investigation by Matt Smith of SF Weekly in 2007, when Clarity still ran the website as an online companion to the newspaper (emphasis mine):

“They're blogs. They don't get edited,” explained Examiner executive editor Jim Pimentel. “We don't give any direction to people on what to write in their blogs. And that's standard operating procedure.”

Pimentel was unaware of [plagiarism] when I spoke with him Friday, but he told me the Examiner has a less-strict standard for accuracy and attribution in stories that appear on the Web. That's because online stories can be changed as journalistic problems emerge, while printed stories require publishing corrections, he said.

While Examiner.com did address the specific plagiarism concerns that Smith expressed, they still emphasize semi-professional blogging, and the impact of Google's search tuning suggests that the site is weak in original content.

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    But none of this answers the question of whether it is a "reliable news source." – Flimzy Jun 29 '13 at 06:29
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    @Flimzy Sensationalism, amateur blogging, poor editorial oversight, content aggregation, and cashing in on the name of a once-respected all point strongly to “not reliable,” no? – Bradd Szonye Jun 29 '13 at 07:36
  • @BraddSzonye For the journalistic source as a whole, not really. Skimming though the article they did site there sources (the accuracy of those sources is questionable) and had they not they could have been subject to a lawsuit for [libel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation). – rjzii Jun 29 '13 at 14:01
  • You have demonstrated that it has low journalistic standards, which is not the same as being an unreliable news source (although there may be a correlation). To demonstrate it is an unreliable news source, you must show that they reports news unreliably. If they truly are as unreliable as you say, it should be easy to show that their stories are full of factual errors. – Flimzy Jun 30 '13 at 02:00
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    @Flimzy True that, which is why I presented the evidence without making a judgment call. – Bradd Szonye Jun 30 '13 at 05:52
  • But the evidence you presented doesn't relate to the question asked (and even less so now that the question has been changed). – Flimzy Jul 01 '13 at 03:19
  • I thought I offered constructive criticism. "To demonstrate it is an unreliable news source, you must show that they reports news unreliably." – Flimzy Jul 01 '13 at 04:57
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    Regarding the change in question, normally I would suggest deleting the answer, but the OP accepted your answer, which, IMHO, is a sign that the edit to the question was inappropriate and should be rolled back. But then, that leaves us with a bad question which should be closed... it's all a rather lost cause, I suspect. – Flimzy Jul 01 '13 at 04:59
  • @Flimzy Yeah, that was my dilemma too. Anyway, my goal wasn't to demonstrate unreliability, just to show that it's _less_ reliable for the purpose of Skeptics (for roughly the same reasons that Skeptics doesn't consider Wikipedia a reliable source). Thanks for the clarification. – Bradd Szonye Jul 01 '13 at 06:23
  • -1. The question asked for whether teas contain pesticides, NOT whether whoever reported the fact published in less than reliable media. This is either (pick one) *Ecological fallacy* regarding the article author; or *Ad hominem* / *Poisoning the well* fallacy. – user5341 Jul 03 '13 at 15:28
  • @DVK I'm aware of the fallacy problems with this kind of answer, but it's exactly what the original poster asked for (and accepted). Somebody else changed the question _after_ that, making the accepted answer no longer make sense. – Bradd Szonye Jul 03 '13 at 18:13
  • Discussion on [meta]: [Third-party edit to question invalidates accepted answer: What to do?](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2452/third-party-edit-to-question-invalidates-accepted-answer-what-to-do) – Bradd Szonye Jul 03 '13 at 23:25