Cosmetics of Kosher

This article from Kosher Today, is not pure drivel, but it is a pretty good attempt.

The article struggles to assuage the Kosher consumers' justified panic and loss of faith in the competence of the Kosher agencies. It not only shirks truth but throws its weight to subvert it. And its purpose is selfish, to prevent a fall in sales of Kosher meat and artificially inflate the standing of the Kashrut agencies.
Aftermath of LA Meat Scandal Draws Kashrus Community Together
By Staff Reporters

LOS ANGELES — While the discovery of the presence of unauthorized meats at the Doheny Meat Market [these carefully chosen words - presence of unauthorised meat, are designed to suggest to the readers that non-Kosher meat just happened to get into the Kosher butcher shop and it had nothing to do with a major failure of the Kashrus agency's competence; somehow unauthorised meat just wandered into the shop, perhaps from Starship Enterprise, it was beamed in by Scotty] on the eve of Passover may have been a wake-up call [MAY have been a wake up call, we're not quite sure if it is, though] for kosher consumers [but it could not possibly be a wake up call for the Kashrus agencies], it has also demonstrated a new age of cooperation amongst kashrus agencies. [You see; some people turn fish into meat, others turn catastrophe into success. Non-Kosher meat smuggled for months or even years, into a supervised Kosher butcher shop demonstrates a new age of co-operation between Kashrus agencies. Must we take your word on this? are you sure about this, Mr. Anonymous Staff Reporter?]


The Rabbinical Council of California (RCC), the certifying agency for Doheny, immediately reached out to leaders of the Orthodox Union (OU) and the Association of Kashrus Organizations (AKO) to help it perfect standards to avoid a repeat of the incident. Rabbis from the two agencies visited LA on several occasions. [So what? More of the same. Has anything ACTUALLY changed?]
KosherToday has also learned that the RCC has reached an agreement with Kehilla Kosher [a very well kept secret because no one else knows about this. If such a breakthrough should occur one can be sure that it would be headlines and there would be much chest thumping, but we've seen and heard nothing of that] in an effort to improve kashrus standards across the board in the city. [So, what is it that they have actually done? Shake hands and share a Devar Torah?] 


Kashrus sources [Does ANYONE in this business have a NAME? Someone who can be quoted and questioned?] say that one reason for the increased cooperation between agencies is better communications as a result of the existence of AKO. [AKO has been running since 1985, and they have NOT yet sorted out the basics of ensuring that our meat is Kosher. BUT every time there is another Kosher scandal/disaster, they get together to improve communications and fix the problem] Kashrus agencies also frequently interface with one another as part of the certification they offer. 

A good example of agency cooperation, say kashrus sources, is when an agency certifies a plant that uses ingredients manufactured in a plant certified by another agency. The growing number of international agencies and symbols (1151, according to the 2013-2014 Kosher Supervision Guide) [there may be 1151 of them but how many does AKO accept as being reliable? And would you trust an organisation that accepts amongst them a certifier who authorises a non-Shomer Shabbat store owner to sell unsealed meat products without full time supervision or other means of being able to verify the integrity of the meat?] means that closer cooperation will become absolutely necessary, they say. 


In the case of the LA agreement between two major agencies, brokered by the OU and AKO, it means that even as an agency works to perfect its standards in the aftermath of a breach, the other agency “cannot simply take advantage of the situation and pick off clients.” 


Some agencies, especially overseas, employ the same mashgichim, in many cases emissaries of Chabad who are positioned around the world. [that's a cost cutting exercise] 


The cooperation has also meant more universally accepted standards, from the checking of vegetables to the classification of ingredients (as to whether they require hashgacha).