The news article, “Cosmetics Tested on Animals Banned in Three States by ProCon,” is a detailed news article stating the facts about banning animal testing in California, New York, and Nevada. These three states will no longer allow the import or sale of cosmetics tested on animals as of the first of this year. The article provides detailed information about each state’s previous animal rights laws along with who signed the bills, sections, and the dates that they were signed.
“bali-000087” by suvarn is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The article is based on numerous sources and lists the 17 sources at the end of the story. I followed up on every statement and quote in the story referencing the source information, and everything was correct. The sources that were listed allowed for fact-checking, which created trust in ProCon because of their transparency.
It was frustrating to have to physically search for each source individually while reading the article as I would have preferred to have a direct link to each one within the article. Instead of providing links to each source, the report only provided links to 3 additional articles. The articles were all by ProCon. The titles of the pieces were, Should Animals be Used for Scientific or Commercial Testing, Number of Animals Used for Testing, by Species, and Pro & Con Quotes: Should Animals Be Used for Scientific or Commercial Testing?
The sources were credible in regards to the facts stated as the California laws in the article were both referenced from the California Legislative Information site. The New York laws were sourced from Find Law for Legal Professionals. The Illinois general assembly site was referenced for the Illinois laws, and the Nevada laws were referenced on the Nevada Legislature site. I was able to reference the quotes using the sources available as well by searching the PETA website, the FDA website, and ProCons link to direct quotes.
“Happier Day” by MTSOfan is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The creator of the story, The ProCon Organization, was founded on July 12, 2004. Per the ProCon.org website, they are the country’s leading source for pro, con, and related research on controversial issues. The mission statement at ProCon.org is: “Promoting critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a straightforward, nonpartisan, and primarily pro-con format.” Mediabiasfactcheck.com says, “Overall, we rate ProCon least biased based on presenting both sides of issues with minimal bias. We also rank them High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact check record. A factual search reveals they have never failed a fact check.”
ProCon does not give their opinion or show bias in this article and clearly states the facts about the laws. They make it clear at the end of the article that the FDA said last year that animal research is still necessary for many areas. While animal testing is not specifically required for cosmetics, the FDA says it advises manufacturers “to employ whatever testing is appropriate and effective for substantiating the safety of their products.”
I decided to give this story an A. I would have given this story an A+ if they had included direct links to all of their sources in the article. I must say that it was very nice to have every source listed at the end of the story, as I was able to research and verify all of the direct quotes and statements made.
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