USA: Food and Environment Reporting Network (FERN)
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 199 Document Number: D09876
Notes:
Via FERN website. 7 pages., Addresses the broad issue of "fake news" through a case example focused on reporting at the "complex intersection of the meatpacking industry, immigration, the rise of fake news, and the changing face of America's heartland." The example focuses on reporting about Somali and other refugees working at a meat packing plant near Garden City, Kansas.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 124 Document Number: D11198
Notes:
Online from ProPublica. 3 pages., Report of a response to ProPublica by a poultry company, Case Farms, described by government officials as "outrageously dangerous." Focus is on accuracy of information provided and reported.
This paper examines the media coverage of the 2013 London cultured meat tasting event, particularly in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Using major news outlets, prominent magazines covering food and science issues, and advocacy websites concerning meat consumption, the paper characterizes the overall emphases of the coverage, the tenor of the coverage, and compares the media portrayal of the important issues to the demographic and psychological realities of the actual consumer market into which cultured meat will compete. In particular, the paper argues that Western media gives a distorted picture of what obstacles are in the path of cultured meat acceptance, especially by overemphasizing and overrepresenting the importance of the reception of cultured meat among vegetarians. Promoters of cultured meat should recognize the skewed impression that this media coverage provides and pay attention to the demographic data that suggests strict vegetarians are a demographically negligible group. Resources for promoting cultured meat should focus on the empirical demographics of the consumer market and the empirical psychology of mainstream consumers.
Online via cattlenetwork.com. "Best of Drovers - this month's top stories." 2 pages., Involves the defamation settlement Disney paid to Beef Products Inc. for faulty, damaging reporting by ABC-TV involving the BPI product, lean finely textured beef.
Online via UI electronic subscription, Researchers used weekly meat production and sales data to assess how media depictions of LFTB affected consumer demand during and after the scare in 2012.
