Rashomon: Ag-Gag Style

April 30, 2013 9:25 PM

Ag-gag laws are getting a bad rap, sure. But CNN actually does an admirable job in presenting three different takes on it. From Humane Society president to in-the-trenches farmer, this does a nice job of presenting how a seemingly clear-cut issue get just as murky grey as anything else in this imperfect world.
posted by Peemster (7 comments total)

I've actually been a producer on a TV show attempting to get undercover footage of unethical treatment of farm animals. The proposed legislation would make it quite impossible to make such films, which is most surely the intent, since it can take weeks and weeks of patient and dangerous undercover filming to reveal a pattern of behaviour, and it's rare that you have a chance to review all the material in a timely fashion.

There are lots of guidelines, legal and ethical, about undercover filming. To make special laws for agribusiness just reveals who's paying the lawmakers.
posted by unSane at 9:43 PM on April 30, 2013 [4 favorites]

Also, where the fuck is the first amendment on this?
posted by unSane at 9:44 PM on April 30, 2013

Gag. This is pretty mediocre.

The pro-ag-gag guy only manages to make his point by some deep deception and diving into a diversion:

> This is why I am confused as to why HSUS and PETA have sought to block legislation in Vermont, California and Tennessee that would require anyone filming animal abuse to provide the unedited video to authorities.

Of course, he misses the point that they have to provide the video to the authorities within 48 hours, and that the authorities are then encouraged to contact the company concerned - which means, essentially, that you'd get to film once and then you'd lose your job - and that if you didn't turn the video over, then (claims a poster on the site) it would not be admissible as evidence at all.

And note he never actually goes back and explains why Ag-Gag legislation is right...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:47 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

The presentation in this post is ridiculous, full of false balance and pseudoprofound hand-waving about an issue that's actually completely simple and one-sided unless you're on an agribusiness payroll. I can't see any gray areas here at all.
posted by RogerB at 9:48 PM on April 30, 2013

Related: Amy Meyer, the first person to be charged in the United States under an Ag-Gag law for filming a slaughterhouse through a fence while standing in a public easement, had the charges against her dropped today. It might be relevant that the owner of the slaughterhouse happened to be the mayor of the town where she was arrested.
posted by mediareport at 9:55 PM on April 30, 2013

For various reasons, I've been subjected to a fair amount of CNN in the mornings recently. Last I watched it was probably over a decade ago. Now it seems to be about on the level that Fox News was back then. Suffice to say, I would not have expected to find "CNN" and "does an admirable job" in the same clause of a sentence. But I suppose I should go RTFA now that I've complained reflexively about CNN.
posted by eviemath at 10:00 PM on April 30, 2013

Sorry, but the articles are so weak, and there's editorializing in the post. I'm flagging.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:02 PM on April 30, 2013