From the article, it sounds like the news organization offered to pay for an industrial hygienist, associated with the local university, to conduct the study.  The human interest side of the story discusses how the founders of one Roaster were interested in the well being of Mexican coffee farmers, which could imply that they would be interested in the well being of their own employees as well.  This is further confirmed by that Roaster working with National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to prevent the high exposure levels found in the news agency study.  Also, there were some papers published implying that the levels would be high, so if the news agency did their homework they could be chasing down a likely lead instead of just randomly looking to cause trouble.  It sounds a lot like asbestosis, which is a horrible way to go; raising the public and industrial knowledge about a preventable cause is doing humane good.