Agriculture’s Voice in Today’s Media - Janie Gabbett, Meatingplace Executive Editor, from the 2012 Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit, Real Farmers Real Food, Celebrating Tradition and Technology, May 2-3, Arlington, VA, USA.

1. Working with the media:
It can be a slimy business
{ Rita Jane Gabbett, executive editor, Meatingplace

2. “Never let the truth stand in the way of
a good story.” – Mark Twain

3. Accuracy, balance, ethics

4. Any idiot with a keyboard

5. A tale of three stories

7. Marketing and Technology Group

8. Meatingplace Blogs include:
Activist Watch by Sarah Hubbart
Blog topics:
 Food safety
 Worker safety
 Animal activism
 Animal handling
 Legal issues
 Product development

9. Meatingplace In-Person Events
 200+ participants at the 2012
Protein Innovation Summit
April 16-17
 Very distinguished speakers
like Kay Johnson-Smith
 Mark your calendars for April
2013

10. Who reads Meatingplace?
 55,000 registered readers
(print and online)
 36,000 work for processors or
their foodservice and retail
customers.
 Names you know –
executives, legislators and
heads of government
agencies.

11. Who else reads Meatingplace?
Journalists from:
 New York Times
 Wall Street Journal
 Washington Post
 CNN
 USA Today
 Reuters
 Bloomberg
 Dow Jones

12. Meatingplace Online coverage
 AM Newsletter: midnight EDT
 PM Newsletter: 3:00 EDT
 breaking news, interviews,
exclusives
 Accuracy, balance, ethics
 Help us help you

13. Meatingplace In Print coverage
 December: Antibiotics
 May: LFTB
 June: Gestation stalls

14. Pew Research Center January 2011:
• 41% of Americans say they get most of their
news from the internet, up 17 points since 2007.
• 66% say television is their main source of news –
but that is down from 74% three years ago and
82% in 2002.

15. Any idiot with a keyboard

16. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart beat the entire Fox News network in
terms of total viewers in May 2011. Stewart averaged 2.3 million
viewers; Fox News averaged 1.85 million viewers. -- Neilson ratings

17. Word wars
Mad Cow Factory Farm
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Indoor Production Facilities
Swine Flu Pink Slime
H1N1 Lean Finely Textured Beef

18. Image wars

19. The “yuck” factor based on an
inaccurate image

20. AMI alerted media about wrong image March 29.
Which one did Detroit Free Press use on April 9?

21. Ratings Wars
March 7 – ABC report

22. Traffic wars:
March 8 traffic increases

23. March 8 -- Google searches for
“pink slime” peak

24. Celebrity Chefs as pundits
(They are looking for ratings, too.)

25. American Meat Institute & BPI efforts
Oct. 17 2011 -- AMI MeatMythCrushers video on LFTB
March 8, 2012-- AMI news release saying LFTB is safe and wholesome
March 15 – AMI responds to USDA School Lunch statement
March 19 – BPI launches Beefisbeef website
March 26 --- AMI statement on impact of “Pink Slime scare campaign”
March 29 – AMI urges media to stop using “pink slime” term & inaccurate photo
March 29 – BPI, governors hold plant tour and news conference

26. March 6:The Lunch Tray blogger Bettina Siegel
started a petition on Change.org to get LFTB removed
from school lunch. She got 100,000 signatures in ONE
DAY and 250,000 in two weeks.

27. Why so fast? 170 million bloggers vs. 70 million in
2008; 140 million Twitter and 1 billion Facebook
users.

28. By April 2, Harris Poll shows 88% of U.S. adults are
aware of “pink slime” and 76% are concerned.

29.  People evaluate new information based on their beliefs.
 Misperceptions seem to generally reflect sincere beliefs.
 Information that challenges these beliefs is unwelcome and
can prompt a variety of compensatory responses.
 As a result, corrections can be ineffective and even backfire.
– research by Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler
Why is this story so hard to fix?

30. BELIEF: The meat industry is not
trustworthy
 First round: It’s got ammonia in it!
 Second round: It’s from pathogenic scraps!
 Third round: Well, it may be beef and it may be
safe, but you should have told us anyway!
Outrage evolution

31. What can be done?

32. Yvonne Thaxton’s recent
Meatingplace Blog makes
these points:
 Make sure you can
defend your practices
scientifically
 Choose your words: Is it a
factory farm or an indoor
production facility?
Choose words carefully

33. Gestation stalls

35. Jan. 5 – HSUS announces it purchased shares of CKE Restaurants and plans
to lean on management to stop buying pork for its Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s
chains from suppliers who use gestation stalls.
Jan. 31 -- HSUS releases two undercover videos it says document abuse
associated with gestation stall use at facilities owned by Seaboard Foods
and Prestage Farms.
Jan. 31 -- Hormel Foods Chairman Jeffrey Ettinger says Hormel would stop
buying hogs from farms that use sow gestation stalls by 2017.
Feb. 13 -- McDonald’s – in a joint news release with HSUS – announces
plans to require pork suppliers to outline plans to phase out gestation stalls.
Feb. 16 -- The group Compassion Over Killing releases a video of gestation
stall use at Hormel supplier Hawkeye Sow Center.
Feb. 21 -- Bon Appetit Management/HSUS joint press release on phasing out
using pork products from hogs housed in gestation crates by 2015.

36. March 5 -- The National Pork Board announces it plans to donate $1 million to
the proposed Fair Oaks Pig Adventure Center in Indiana to increase
transparency on hog production.
March 8 -- Compass Group, the world's largest food and support services
company, announces it will stop buying pork that comes from animals bred
using gestation crates in its U.S. supply chain by 2017.
March 20 – HSUS files its third SEC complaint against Seaboard Foods related
to gestation stall use.
March 22 – Wendy’s announces it will require U.S. and Canadian suppliers to
provide their plans to phase out gestation stall use.
April 25 – HSUS’s shareholder resolution at the Domino’s Pizza annual
meeting on ensuring its pepperoni and ham comes from producers who don’t
use gestation stalls. (It doesn’t pass, but still got a news cycle)
April 25 -- Burger King announces that by 2017 it will purchase pork only
from suppliers that can prove they don’t use gestation crates.

37. Belstra Milling and the
Fair Oaks Pig Adventure
project.
Buildings will be wired
with cameras for distance
learning
Be transparent, be proactive

39. “The truth is always
somewhere in the
middle.
It’s not the horror that
{ HSUS says it is and it’s
not a bed of roses
either.
I think the industry has
not been smart about
the way it deals with
the public.
People are just
curious.”
Temple Grandin

40. BSE Redux

41. HEADLINES TELL THE STORY
Washington Post: Beleaguered beef industry avoids widespread
market scare over mad cow case with quick response
Associated Press: Of food supply risks, mad cow's not high on list
USA TODAY: USDA: Calif. mad cow case poses no human threat
BLOOMBERG: Mad cow disease discovery not likely to threaten beef
industry
BLOOMBERG: Quick response averts market scare in mad cow case
CBS News: Worried about mad cow? Other foodborne illnesses a
bigger threat
Sarah Klein, food safety attorney for the Center for Science in the
Public Interest: There is no need for consumers to take precautions
based on this case.

42. LFTB vs. BSE: Janet Riley
 Journalists around in 2003 were
already educated on BSE
 USDA came out faster;
background info already there
 BSE seen as happening TO the
industry; LFTB seen as
BECAUSE OF the industry
 No appearance of “hiding
something” with new BSE case
 LFTB in food supply; BSE was
not

43. USDA did a lot right the first day
 BSE information center  News release gave enough
webpage with tons of info and answered enough
background questions to make a story
 Video of Dr. John Clifford for  Agriculture Secretary Vilsack
broadcaster use went on CNN the same day

45. In conclusion
 Know your science
 Be able to tell your story
 Same day response
 Know who to tell it to
 Know where to tell it
 Offer images
 Offer experts
 Be transparent
 Help us help you

46. “Actions speak louder than words, but
not nearly as often.” – Mark Twain