"A 26-part series on genetically modified food was not Nathanael Johnson's idea. And he didn't realize it would take six months, either."

"Last year, Johnson was hired as the new food writer for Grist, a website for environmental news and opinion. Grist's editor, Scott Rosenberg, was waiting with an assignment: Dig into the controversy over GMOs."

"GMOs "were a unique problem for us," says Rosenberg. On the one hand, most of Grist's readers and supporters despise GMOs, seeing them as a tool of corporate agribusiness and chemical-dependent farming."

"On the other hand, says Rosenberg, he'd been struck by the passion of people who defended this technology, especially scientists. It convinced him that the issue deserved a fresh look."