Make it Viral

By Jasmin

 

As host of CNN’s Headline News show, Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell, Jane has made history herstory with her groundbreaking coverage of swine flu. In case you haven’t yet gotten one of the thousands of mass emails and Facebook posts with one of Jane’s YouTube videos, here’s one that I like:

And if you’re not tuning into her nightly show (airs Monday-Sunday at 7 p.m.), you can see videos of her swine flu stories on her website, CNN.com/jane.

Jane is one of the few journalists who is telling the full story of swine flu. Night after night, she is challenging experts (and doing her best to get industry representatives) to look further into the outbreak and consider the possibility that it’s the abysmal, filthy living conditions for pigs that is at least partially to blame for this deadly virus. As part of her coverage, Jane is showing millions of viewers the inconvenient truth inside factory farms. The b-roll footage is of pigs crammed so tightly inside gestation crates that they cannot turn around. In nature, these pigs would thrive on social interactions and energetic activity, but in the tiny crates, their only option is to obsessively chew the bars an inch beyond their snout. I’d go crazy, too. Thanks to Jane Velez-Mitchell, issues such as this one are in the public eye.

Let’s tell CNN how much we appreciate Jane’s coverage of swine flu, and reiterate that pigs and other farm animals are living in conditions that are a breeding ground for zoonotic diseases. (Feel free to check out our tips on responding to the media.)

Here’s some more information about pig production. You can also read what renowned public health expert and Farm Sanctuary Board member Dr. Allan Kornberg has to say about the issue. While you’re at it, you might as well order the Truth Behind Pork brochures and drop a few wherever you go: your local coffee shop, community center, gym, grocery store, hair salon…

Then make it viral. Share this blog entry, send around Jane’s links, tune into Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell, tweet about it, put it all over Facebook and MySpace, and start talking to your friends and colleagues about the horrors of factory farming and the healthy, delicious, compassionate alternative. Use the Swine Flu and Jane’s journalism as your platform for discussion, and spread the word like it is everybody’s business.  

Comments

[kelly g.]

I'm really digging Jane Velez-Mitchell - I wish CNN would give her an extra hour instead of re-running the first hour of Prime News.