The worst piece of journalism I have read this year; an exploration!

A few weeks ago I bought some shredded cheese in Florida from a Trader Joe’s.

Shredded cheese

A few days ago, a concerning AP news headline caught my eye: Shredded cheese sold is dozens of states recalled due to potential for metal fragment contamination.

AP shredded cheese

Here is the full article (as of writing):

There is a recall for more than 260,000 cases of shredded cheese sold in 31 states and Puerto Rico because of the potential for metal fragment contamination, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA said that the various shredded cheeses were recalled by Great Lakes Cheese Co. The cheese products are sold under private store-brand labels at several retailers, including Target, Walmart and Aldi.

The recall includes various cheeses such as mozzarella, Italian style, pizza style, mozzarella and provolone and mozzarella and parmesan.

The recall has a Class II classification, because the product “may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote,” according to the FDA’s website.

An FDA says ingesting metal fragments may cause injuries such as dental damage, laceration of the mouth or throat, or laceration or perforation of the intestine.

Can you spot the issue? Can you tell me if my Trader Joe’s shredded cheese from Florida is affected by this recall? I didn’t remove any links – there were none. This was it; the entire article. Have fun!

What in the actual fuck are we doing here. The comments section of the article rightly points out the absurdity in reading an AP news article followed by a required Google search to get the actual information.

AP shredded cheese comments

The article is kind of worthless without the list of states and or products affected

This has more details along with list of states affected. https://www.today.com/food/recall/shredded-cheese-recall-december-2025-rcna247037

If only we had someone without brain worms in charge of this kind of stuff… maybe we’d get better info.. you know… rather than having to Google it?

AP: we should not have to rely on someone in the comments to provide a link with more information and specifics

(see the today article linked above for the full list – the FDA link from there seems broken as of writing, though presumably would have fewer ads and more authoritative info)

I ask again, what in the actual fuck are we doing here? It’s worth noting that this AP news article is authored by a human being – a professional journalist. According to their LinkedIn page, they obtained a master’s degree in journalism and have been doing this for decades. A few things my unprofessional (unpaid) journalism right here has done better than this instance of their journalism:

  • no ads (not their fault, to be fair)
  • a link to the original source of information (absolutely their fault)
  • (hopefully) not left you more confused than when you clicked the headline (absolutely their fault)

I have reached out to the AP journalist on LinkedIn. This is a developing story and details will be updated as we have them.