Will Heflinger
wh617717@ohio.edu
With many stories about fake news spreading online, many readers have started to not trust online journalists. There have been many instances where journalists have created false information to help their stories, such as fake testimonials and false facts. Eventually, these stories are proven to be false and can potentially ruin the journalist's credibility.
False information is something that people may think is only in news stories, but companies and brands have been creating false facts to help sell their products. One company that has had multiple cases of false information is Kellogg's.
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| Photo via Kellogg's |
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Truth In Advertising guidelines, "federal law says that ad must be truthful, not misleading, and, when appropriate, backed by scientific evidence." Many different Kellogg's products have been caught in a controversy because of misleading advertising and labels on their products.
In 2009, Kellogg's found themselves in trouble when they claimed that eating a bowl of their cereal, Frosted Mini Wheats, "is clinically shown to improve attentiveness by 20%." A class-action law suit was created and charged Kellogg's with false advertising. However, Kellogg's never admitted to false advertising. A $4 million settlement fund was created where customers who had purchased Frosted Mini Wheats because of their advertisements could make a reimbursement claim.
In one of Kellogg's more recent controversies, in 2016, another class-action lawsuit was filed against the company. This time, several of Kellogg's products were brought forward, including Raisin Bran, Smart Start, Crunchy Nut, and Nutri-Grain.
The problem with these brands was that they were being advertised as healthy and nutritious, but according to the complaint, "contain high amounts of sugar and, as a result, increase the risk of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular, and obesity."
Because of this lawsuit, Kellogg's agreed to only use the terms, "wholesome" and "nutritious," as well as similar words, when describing individual and specific ingredients, rather than the product as a whole. Other agreements made by Kellogg's can be found here.
For more information on Kellogg's various false advertisement cases, visit truthinadvertising.org, and search "Kellogg" on the website's search bar. Their most recent class-action suit that was filed against them was as recent as November 2020.
No matter if it is a brand or a journalist, spreading false information should not be tolerated. People and brands should follow the same ethical guidelines and be sure to fact check any statement that is being made. Once this becomes more normalized, maybe people will begin to trust journalists again.
This was very interesting to read. It's really surprising that I've never heard about any of these lawsuits until now. It makes me wonder how a large company moved forward with the decision to put the blatant lie that he product "clinically shown to improve attentiveness by 20%" onto a box without even questioning the number of ethical codes they would be breaking.
ReplyDeleteWhen someone says the term "Fake News", I typically think of false information being targeted toward another company in order to attack their image. What doesn't come to mind is individual companies lying to their consumers in order to increase sales. As a consumer, I typically trust that ethical codes will be followed and that statements such as the one made by Kelloggs would be true. This encourages me to start doing more of my own research behind these brands and their claims.