A ground beef display is seen at a Fresh and Easy market in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles March 28, 2012. Customers have been invited to bring packages of ground beef from other retailers containing USDA-approved ammonia-treated meat filler, also known as ''pink... 
 
 ABC News was hit with a $1.2 billion defamation lawsuit on Thursday by a South Dakota meat processor that accused it of misleading viewers into believing a product that critics have dubbed "pink slime" was unsafe. 
 
 Beef Products Inc sued over ABC reports aired in March and April about the nation's largest producer of "lean finely textured beef." 
 
 In court papers, the company said ABC falsely told viewers that its beef product was not safe, not healthy and not even meat, resulting in the 31-year-old company's loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in profit and roughly half its employees. 
 
 "The lawsuit is without merit," Jeffrey Schneider, senior vice president of ABC News, a unit of Walt Disney Co, said in a statement. "We will contest it vigorously." 
 
 Six individuals were also sued, including ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer and the reporters Jim Avila and David Kerley. 
 
 ABC conducted a "sustained and vicious disinformation campaign," Beef Products' lawyer Dan Webb, chairman of Winston & Strawn and a former U.S. attorney in Chicago, said at a press briefing. 
 
 "To call a food product slime is the most pejorative term that could be imagined. ABC's constant repetition of it, night after night after night, had a huge impact on the consuming public." 
 
 The other defendants are Gerald Zirnstein, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture microbiologist credited with coining the term "pink slime;" former USDA employee Carl Custer and former Beef Products employee Kit Foshee. All appeared or were quoted in ABC's reports. 
 
 William Marler, a lawyer for Zirnstein and Custer, said: "The complaint is completely bogus and frivolous, and we will defend these public employees vigorously." 
 
 Foshee could not be immediately reached for comment. 
 
 OPRAH WINFREY 
 
 Beef Products accused ABC News of acting with actual malice in producing its reports, a high legal standard to meet. 
 
 "These kinds of cases are hard to win because courts have given media many protections in reporting on matters of public concern," said Bruce Rosen, a partner and media law specialist at McCusker, Anselmi, Rosen & Carvelli in Florham Park, New Jersey. 
 
 "Constitutionally, the plaintiff has to show ABC knew what it was broadcasting was false, or had very strong reasons to know, and ignored them," he said. "It's a very hard standard to overcome. Dan Webb will have his hands full." 
 
 Lean finely textured beef is a filler made from fatty trimmings that are sprayed with ammonia to kill bacteria. 
 
 The Department of Agriculture approved use of the product in ground beef in 1993 and affirmed its safety in March. 
 
 But that has failed to quiet critics, which have included food safety activists, as well as animal rights organizations. 
 
 Large customers have also taken note, with companies such as McDonald's Corp, Yum Brands Inc's Taco Bell and supermarket chain Safeway Inc halting purchases of the product. 
 
 Other courts have addressed similar claims in the past. 
 
 In 2000, a federal appeals court rejected defamation claims by Texas cattle ranchers against talk show host Oprah Winfrey over a "dangerous food" episode of her eponymous show, where she was accused of falsely depicting U.S. beef as unsafe in the wake of a British panic over "mad cow" disease. 
 
 PRODUCT DISPARAGEMENT ALLEGED 
 
 Beef Products filed its 263-page complaint in Union County Circuit Court in South Dakota. It said ABC included nearly 200 false, defamatory and disparaging statements in on-air and online reports, and in social media postings. 
 
 Based in Dakota Dunes, just west of Sioux City, Beef Products also accused ABC of interfering with its business dealings with grocery store chains and ground beef processors. 
 
 It said ABC's "campaign" against it actually began in April 2011, when the network broadcast a show featuring British chef Jamie Oliver that included false statements about the type of beef trimmings it used. 
 
 Beef Products said the media furor forced it shut three of its four plants and eliminate more than 700 jobs, and has cost more than $20 million of revenue each month. 
 
 It said weekly sales of the beef filler have fallen to less than 2 million pounds from nearly 5 million. 
 
 Beef Products said it is seeking $400 million of compensatory damages representing lost profit, which could be tripled under South Dakota's Agricultural Food Products Disparagement Act, plus punitive damages. 
 
 Zirnstein used the term "pink slime" in a 2002 email to coworkers after touring a Beef Products plant. His email was later released to The New York Times. 
 
 Walt Disney shares closed up 90 cents at $52.60 on the New York Stock Exchange. 
 
 The case is Beef Products Inc et al v. American Broadcasting Cos et al, Circuit Court of South Dakota, Union County, No. 12-292. 
 
 (Reporting By Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Carey Gillam in Kansas City, Missouri; Editing by Martha Graybow, Sofina Mirza-Reid, Tim Dobbyn, Leslie Gevirtz and Andre Grenon) 

 The company that makes what it calls lean finely textured beef, the food product that critics call "pink slime," has announced a defamation suit against ABC News after reports on the product by ABC and others led to reduced demand. 
 
 Media organizations have frequently reported on the product that often was added to ground beef sold in supermarkets and served in restaurants and schools. 
 
 "The lawsuit is without merit," said Jeffrey Schneider, Senior Vice President of ABC News, which ran several such reports. "We will contest it vigorously." 
 
 Beef Products Inc., BPI Technology Inc. and Freezing Machines Inc., collectively known as BPI, first publicly indicated Wednesday its intention to share details of "a major lawsuit regarding defamation of its beef product, lean finely textured beef" today. 
 
 The product, abbreviated as LFTB, is made of beef trimmings that are heated and spritzed with ammonia gas to kill bacteria. Blending in the product can reduce the price of ground beef. The USDA says that the product is safe to eat and reduces the overall fat content of beef products. 
 
 In late March, governors from three meat-producing states walked through a BPI plant with reporters and defended LFTB. "It's beef, but it's leaner beef which is better for you," Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said. "We take this off the market then we end up with a fatter product that's going to cost more and is going to increase the obesity problem in this country." 
 
 Then USDA scientist Gerald Zirnstein first coined the term "pink slime" to describe what the industry calls LFTB in an email he sent to USDA colleagues in 2002. He and former USDA colleague Carl Custer continue to be outspoken critics of LFTB. 
 
 After a flurry of news reports earlier this year, several national grocery chains publicly vowed to discontinue selling beef containing the product, joining some other supermarket chains that claimed they never did. 
 
 Restaurants, including McDonald's, Burger King and Taco Bell, had earlier stopped buying it. 
 
 In early April, the USDA approved requests by BPI and others that they be allowed to label products containing LFTB. Given the choice by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, many school districts refused to accept beef with the "pink slime." Only three states participating in the National School Lunch Program -- Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota, all states with BPI facilities -- agreed to order ground beef that might contain the product, according to a June 6 ABC News report. 
 
 With demand apparently falling, BPI announced in late March it would temporarily suspend operations at plants in Texas, Kansas and Iowa, but continue to operate one in South Dakota. The company blamed social media and news organizations, specifically ABC News, for what it called a gross misrepresentation of its product and process. 
 
 On April 2, AFA Foods, a Pennsylvania-based competitor to BPI, filed for bankruptcy protection, citing reduced demand stemming from the media's coverage of "pink slime."
– Beef Products Inc. is suing ABC News in general and several of its anchors specifically for defamation over its reports on BPI's "lean finely-textured beef" product—better known as "pink slime." The lawsuit alleges that ABC falsely led viewers to believe that the beef was not safe, healthy, or even meat, Reuters reports. BPI says that the reports reduced demand for its product, and it's demanding $400 million in compensation and damages. The suit names Diane Sawyer, Jim Avila, David Kerley, and others. ABC was hardly alone in reporting on the slime controversy. The term "pink slime" was coined by a USDA scientist, one of several who remain outspoken critics of the product. Since the controversy broke, BPI has had to close three of its four plants. "The lawsuit is without merit," one ABC executive said. "We will contest it vigorously."