RHOADES LESS TRAVELED:

By now, I’m guessing, you’ve read about beef-gate.

Maybe seen the sickening footage of workers at a Chino slaughterhouse electrically prodding “downer” cows to get them to toe the line, so to speak, on the way to the kill box.

Or looked up from your burger or steak when that smart aleck friend remarked: “Hope that one didn’t have E. coli or mad cow,” because, according to health officials, as many as 143 million pounds of beef bought from that Chino horror show made it to the market before the largest meat recall in U.S. history was implemented.

How much of it was bad, and how much was consumed, is anyone’s guess. Safe to say, though, that vegans — carrots and sprouts dancing in their heads — are sleeping more soundly than beef eaters these days.

Last Thursday, the Daily Pilot learned 16 Newport-Mesa restaurants were named on a state list of possible buyers of the tainted beef.

After investigating, reporter Michael Miller wrote a story that we posted on our website.

That’s when a restaurateur told Miller the state was wrong — terribly, egregiously wrong. We called the state Department of Public Health and representatives stood behind their report but stressed that it was not definitive (translation: There’s a margin of error).

Spokeswoman Lea Brooks said her office compiled the information by identifying meat distributors believed to have received the Chino beef and requesting their customer lists from the last two years.

Interesting stuff, huh?

On the one hand, we’re faced with a possible public safety hazard. On the other, businesses could be unfairly impugned by an overly-aggressive or just-plain-wrong state report.

Only time will tell on both counts.

Meanwhile, we wrote a second story giving the restaurateur and a couple of others with similar complaints their fair say in the matter and posted that online. I’m proud to say that our story, best I could tell after surfing the Internet, was the first to center on the restaurateurs’ defense of their meat-buying practices. The headline in the next day’s paper read, “Eateries cry foul on bad beef list.”

Well, the gentleman called again. This time, City Editor Paul Anderson did his level best, then transferred him to yours truly and I was implored to remove the second story from the site.

Yep, the one in which he mounted his defense. Turns out, at least in his mind, the old adage that any publicity is good publicity doesn’t hold. Upon retrospect, and after multiple conversations in which he gave his side of the story, he decided that attempting to rebuke the initial story only made things worse.

And here’s where it gets really interesting.

He’s an advertiser. And, yes, he played that card. Full disclosure: While persistent and out of line, he was also congenial and even-keeled. We talked for perhaps an hour, dang near agreed to have dinner then stalemated, which is to say, he ferociously lobbied to get his business’ name out of the story and I wouldn’t budge.

No way I’m giving special treatment to someone — which amounts to unfair treatment to everyone else — because he advertises with our paper. Frankly, if I had wanted to go into prostitution, I would have had a sex-change operation, changed my name to Brandy and moved to Hollywood.

Readers deserve to know which restaurants are placed on a state list of those who possibly bought and sold bad beef. Restaurants who are placed on the list deserve to defend themselves, if they choose. And we at the Pilot owe to all affected by this story to continue reporting it as fully and fairly as possible until the whole truth is known, even if we take a short-term financial hit by doing so.

Did we do the right thing?

I’d like to know what you think.

BRADY RHOADES is the Daily Pilot’s managing editor. He may be reached at brady.rhoades@latimes.com or at (714) 966-4607.