Pub Test: Is ACM churning out irresponsible and scaremongering click bait

The Bay Post, Narooma News and Bega District News, Milton Ulladulla times, Cootamundra Herald, Braidwood Times and even the once proud Moree Champion are running a alarming story: Chicken owners warned backyard eggs contain 'significant lead risk'

A click to the story (if you pay a subscription to read) has the headline : Study finds backyard chicken eggs have 40 times more lead than supermarket eggs The article then tells us "Newly published research found backyard hens' eggs contain, on average, more than 40 times the lead levels of commercially produced eggs". You think to yourself "Hang on, What newly published research? Where?" "I have chickens. I best read this before I stop eating my own home grown South East eggs and die from lead poisoning". It turns out the newly published research outcomes were modelled using the large Australian VegeSafe garden soil database (>20,000 samples) to predict which areas of inner-city Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are likely to have soil Pb concentrations unsuitable for keeping backyard chickens. The study assessed trace metal contamination in backyard chickens and their eggs from garden soils across 55 Sydney homes. The ACM story, for those who pay to read it, then leads into a variety of maps of Inner City Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and then tells readers "These findings will come as a shock to many people who have turned to backyard food production". The story is a metropolitan one and therefore NOT a heads-up to South East backyard chicken owners. It is not a headline story. It is not a regional story. It turns out that it is a regurgitated ACM wide story feed to The headline of 'Chicken owners warned backyard eggs contain 'significant lead risk' in local media that links to a story with the title "Study finds backyard chicken eggs have 40 times more lead than supermarket eggs" Having regurgitated the metropolitan focused story across the regional ACM mastheads the article closes off with the attribute that it was being shared (Under Creative Commons) from the original article in The Conversation For those who don't bother reading between the lines and doing further research the article headlines are enough to start the Misinformation Ball rolling. With headlines such as "Backyard hens’ eggs contain 40 times more lead on average than shop eggs, research finds" one might jump to the wrong conclusion, close down their rural home chook yard and buy shop eggs. But look at this image: The text below the map is important.

NOTE: Levels of lead risk for backyard chickens across Sydney. Dark green dots indicate areas with safe lead levels. Light green and yellow dots are areas over the safe lead level. Orange and red dots indicate areas with high levels. Map: Max M. Gillings, Mark Patrick Taylor, Author provided BUT ACM didn't bother with the critical, contextual text. Instead they ran this graphic as if to control their alarmist narrative:

One might come to the conclusion that if Sydney is encircled by dark green spots that indicate areas with safe lead levels that might extend to Milton, Cootamundra, Batemans Bay, Braidwood, Narooma and Bega and even Moree. But for whatever reason ACM decided it would regurgitate an article it didn't write that was all about metropolitan chickens and lead levels and put the wind up its regional readers being sure to NOT reassure regional NSW readers that their eggs, their chooks and vegie patches were, in the main, lead free (unless they lived in Broken Hill or Mt Isa ).

Above: across the south east, to our west, north to Mt Isa and west via South Australia and on to Bunbury readers of ACM newspapers are being warned about backyard eggs as ACM regurgitates its clickbait under the guise of Latest News