Detailed Instructions: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Q: A judge in South Dakota has cleared the way to trial of a lawsuit claiming ABC News “pink slime” coverage caused $1.9 billion worth of damage to the business of Beef Products Inc., which makes the meat product tagged with the term. 
  
 Judge Cheryle Gering threw out defamation claims against anchor Diane Sawyer but left standing accusations against ABC News and multiple Emmy award-winning journalist, Jim Avila. 
  
 Judge Gering, in rejecting ABC’s bid to have the case dismissed, said a jury could find the network was pursuing “a negative spin” on the story before conducting any research and that Avilla had an anti-meat-industry agenda. 
  
 “Looking at the evidence in a light most favorable to the plaintiffs, a jury could determine that there is clear and convincing evidence that ABC Broadcasting and Avila were reckless,” the judge said, and that “they engaged in purposeful avoidance of the truth.” 
  
 An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com. 
  
 Also popular on WSJ.com: 
  
 When the children crashed dad’s BBC interview: The family speaks. 
  
 CBO sees 24 million more uninsured, $337 billion deficit cut in coming decade with GOP health plan. ||||| A judge in South Dakota has cleared the way to trial of a lawsuit claiming ABC News “pink slime” coverage caused $1.9 billion worth of damage to the business of Beef Products Inc., which makes the meat product tagged with the term. 
  
 Judge Cheryle Gering threw out defamation claims against anchor Diane Sawyer but left standing accusations against ABC News and multiple Emmy award-winning journalist, Jim Avila. 
  
 Judge... ||||| Feature | 
  
 New "veggie hate crime" law awards triple damages for food disparagement 
  
 OHIO--Ohio became the twelfth state to enact a product disparagement or "trade libel" law in early February when Governor Voinovich signed a bill that will allow those in the agriculture industry to recover triple damages for the disparagement of any perishable food product. 
  
 The act defines "disparagement" as "the dissemination to the public in any manner of any false information that a perishable agricultural or aquacultural food product is not safe for human consumption." 
  
 The law allows farmers, distributors and retailers to recover "up to three times" the amount of compensatory damages suffered as a result of the disparagement as well as punitive damages and attorney fees. The plaintiff must prove that the person who disseminated the information knew or should have known that the information was false. 
  
 The act defines "false information" as "any information that is not based upon reasonable and reliable scientific inquiry, facts, or data, and that directly indicates that a perishable agricultural or aquacultural product is not safe for human consumption." 
  
 The 11 states with similar statutes are Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas. 
  
 Even in states that have not enacted specific legislation, the news media can face food disparagement lawsuits. Apple growers in Washington sued CBS in 1989 after a "60 Minutes" segment focused on an apple-growth chemical called Alar. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Seattle (9th Cir.) dismissed that suit in early October 1995, finding that the apple growers failed to prove falsity. In late February, the plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. (House Bill 352) |||||
A:
Diane Sawyer escapes repercussions, but accusations against ABC News and reporter Jim Avila stand after a South Dakota state judge cleared the way to trial for a Beef Products lawsuit against the network for calling its meat product "pink slime." The Wall Street Journal and Reuters report that Judge Cheryle Gering rejected ABC's attempts to have the 2012 defamation complaint dismissed. Gering ruled that a jury could find "clear and convincing evidence" that Avila and the network were "reckless" and "engaged in purposeful avoidance of the truth," including not doing due diligence on iffy informants. Per MarketWatch, Gering added that a jury could also conclude that ABC wanted to put a "negative spin" on the segment even before it started digging into the story. Beef Products says hundreds of jobs disappeared when it was forced to shutter three of its four plants after the "pink slime" reports, which a company lawyer called "fake news" in front of Gering in January. Because of South Dakota's strict "veggie hate crime" laws, which offer triple damages when the safety of a food product is falsely disparaged, ABC could be slammed with nearly $6 billion in damages. The judge noted that she cleared Sawyer because, as the news anchor, she would've ostensibly not had as much to do with research as others working on the segment.