The Animal Turn

S8E9: News with Shatabdi Chakrabarti, Jessica Scott-Reid, and Jan Dutkiewicz

• Claudia Hirtenfelder • Season 8 • Episode 9

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In this episode we bring together a photojournalist from India, a Canadian columnist, and a political scientist/reporter to discuss animals and the news. We discuss different types of news as well as some of the challenges that come with creating news content that focuses on animals.   

 

Date Recorded: 4 June 2025

 

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Siobhan O'Sullivan:

This is another iROAR podcast.

Jan Dutkiewicz :

On pig farms, ventilation was shut down in factory farms, and animals literally cooked alive in their own body heat. That's a fact. It's a biophysical fact. You don't have to dress that up, but that's also the story. Ventilation shutdown and animal suffering is the story there. And again, that's a story that resonates. Like the sheer volume of coverage of ventilation shutdown, you know, by people like uh Matt Johnson getting undercover footage in Iowa and whatnot, those are stories people care about. I think if people feel like they're not being clubbed over the head with something that is being snuck in, but if the story is mass scale animal suffering, readers care about that. The public cares about that.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

In today, the ninth episode of the season, we're focusing on yet again another form of media. Today we're going to be speaking all about news. If you've been following the season so far, you know that the first half of the season we focused on specific concepts related to animals and media. And uh since episode five, we've switched to talking about particular forms of media and the ways in which they're entangled with animals. And I'm looking forward to pulling and unraveling some of these threads between the episodes and the grad review coming up next. But for now, in today's episode, we focus on news and the variety of ways in which animals are represented and framed in the news, as well as how challenging it can be to even get animal stories into the news in the first place. We talk about everything from gatekeeping in media to how different forms of media, so legacy media versus new forms of news media, are interacting with and competing with one another, as well as how, you know, attempts to get animals in the news happen. We spent a great deal of time talking and focusing on that. It's a really fascinating and interesting conversation that challenged me in a number of different ways, not only in terms of thinking about animals in media, but even the ways in which uh questions are framed and how I ask questions about the inclusion of animals in these kinds of stories. Three guests joined me on the show today with a variety of expertise and interest in animals and news. Shatabhi Chakaravati is a freelance media professional based in India. She focuses on stories of wildlife, conservation, and communities. And she has been a contributing photojournalist at We Animals for over three years, documenting stories covering topics such as wet markets, shrimp farming, and intensive hen and chicken farming. If you're interested in more detail about what animal photojournalism is, make sure to also check out the episode with Joanne MacArthur where we dive really into depth about that form of journalism. Shatabi also provides mentorship as part of her capacity building work. And as a filmmaker, photographer, and writer, her work has been published and exhibited in both national and international platforms. She's a member of Her Wild Vision Initiative and has produced films, photo essays, and articles for Vice, WWF India, Round Glass Sustain, and Nature in Focus, among others. Jessica Scott Reid is a freelance journalist. She's been covering animal topics in major Canadian media outlets for the last decade. This includes The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Vancouver Province, Winnipeg Free Press, and many, many more. Jessica is also the culture and disinformation correspondent for CNT Media. And finally, Ian Dudkowitz is an assistant professor of political science in the Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies at the Pratt Institute. His research examines the design, production, circulation, and consumption of everyday commodities with a primary focus on meat and other food products. His book, Feed the People, co-authored with Gabrielle Rosenberg, was recently published and it envisions a more just and sustainable food system. He's working on a second monograph that focuses on the politics of American corporate meat production. His research on these topics has been included both in academic journals and mainstream media. In terms of journals, this includes Nature Food, Frontiers and Sustainable Food Systems, the Journal of Cultural Economy and Food Ethics, and in mainstream media, Wired, The Guardian, The New Republic, The Washington Post, Vox, and The Wall Street Journal. Needless to say, these three people know what it means to produce news stories about animals and some of the challenges that come with that space, but also some of the opportunities and the gaps that emerge. So it's a really great conversation. I found myself being challenged and leaning in in more ways than one. So I hope you feel the same way. Before I let you go, just a quick thank you once again to our sponsors. Thank you to Animals and Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics, Apple, for sponsoring this podcast and to the Pollination Project, the School of Modern Language, the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, as well as the School of Literature, Media and Communication at Georgia Tech University for co-sponsoring the season as part of a research project there. Okay, I think that's enough for now. The season is almost done. 2025 is coming to a close. I hope you enjoy this and that it gives you something to chew on as you enter the Hi Shotabdi, Jessica and Yan. Welcome to the Animal Turn Podcast. It's great to have you on the show today. So, as always, uh perhaps let's start with learning a little bit about you. So the three of you are all journalists, but you're journalists in different realms in different ways. Uh so maybe you could tell me just a little bit about you, the type of uh journalism you do, and how you got interested in kind of making these connections between animals and reporting.

Jessica Scott-Reid :

Yeah, I'm Jessica Scott Reed. I'm a freelance journalist. I'm based in central Canada. I've been covering animal and environmental and food issues for major media here in Canada for about the last decade as a freelancer, a lot in the opinion section because I think that allows me to center the animal more in the types of stories that I want to write. Um currently I'm also the culture and disinformation correspondent for Sentient. I've been freelancing for them for many years as well, but I've uh moved into this new role where I get to take on sort of pervasive myths about the food system, um, animals and the climate, uh, and and debunk some of these myths for our readers and now also our viewers because I do videos as well. So uh I've I've been working um in the space of animals and the environment for this very long time. And both personally and professionally, it's been um an important topic for me as an animal lover and an environmentalist uh growing up in the free willy era, I always say, in the 80s and 90s, uh, where you know learning about animal sentience started at a young age and uh it's it's thankfully evolved into a career. So it's been very fulfilling to be this person, both personally and professionally.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Was it part of your career in early days? Like was this always a part of your vision when you thought, okay, I'd become a journalist in animals or thinking about the climate would be part of my or slash your mission. Was that always the goal? Or like how did you how did you find yourself on the the journalism track of things?

Jessica Scott-Reid :

Uh I never really thought that it could be my full-time job. Um, I started um always working in media, I have a communications background, and then I did a master's in cultural studies. I was living overseas, writing about culture and food. And just as I personally um evolved into the vegan that I am today, um I made a decision at one point that I really wanted to focus on writing about animals, but I didn't actually believe that it could be a full job. So it's actually been a dream come true to be able to um harness my passion in this way and create a full career out of it.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Amazing. And Jessica, you've recently started doing video, but Shatabdi, you've got a long kind of experience with visual media. Uh, and I'm hoping later on we'll get to speak a bit about this connection between visual media and and the news. But how about you? How did you start to bring animals into focus, as it were?

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

Um, so I began, like my career began in a news agency, but I was a producer of a show. I was one of the producers for this uh political satire show. So, in that sense, my career started with some, you know, sense of journalism because it used to be in one of India's top news channels at that point of time, and we were doing political satire. So uh that's the journalistic, you know, aspect to the career today. Uh but this whole thing about animals, so I I grew up in spaces in the country uh where nature was all around me. So it was never, you know, like thanks to my dad's job at that point of time, you know, we would get, he would get transferred every five, six years. And we would get to stay in locations where, you know, I could still walk and go to a waterfall, like, you know, close to my house, or walk to a hiking trail very close to my house. And or, you know, the house was surrounded by some orchard. So I grew up with, you know, lots of wild species around me. So the love for nature, I think, was very like it was always there. Um, and when I started working and as an adult, and you know, when work, life started going in the career and what to do, what not to do, um, I kind of very organically found myself gravitating towards stories, which is about the environment, which is about the nature around us, communities, indigenous people. So now if I look back, I think it just happened very organically. Maybe the childhood had an impact, and then the early career in a news agency kind of all, you know, it just mixed together in a way that these are the kind of stories that I want to tell, whether it's as a as a you know, as a filmmaker, as a photojournalist, as a writer, but you know, it has to be a mix of both.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

And when did the connection with We Animals? I know that you're a correspondent with We Animals, when did and they obviously do amazing work in terms of bringing uh visuals, a whole host of different spaces, but when did that kind of start for you? When did you make that connection with them?

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

Um, I think just after COVID, because um I had visited a location where um, so I like my photography started a lot with uh, you know, going to the forests and documenting, you know, or photographing wild tigers and wild animals and all that. That was a fascination. But then very slowly, because I would travel into the interiors of the country, I started realizing and I started seeing what's happening on ground. So it also became about these unseen stories and unheard stories from the hinterlands where there is a constant overlap between humans and animals, whether it's for survival, whether it's for land, whether it's for use of that land or resources. So uh so when when I used to visit these coastal villages where there would be fishing communities and I would see what's happening there. And one thing kept striking me a lot that, you know, in in the news section uh related to conservation issues, I would see a lot of visuals from Southeast Asia, but not a lot from India. There is a huge market in India, whether it's fishing, whether it's meat, whether it's animals which are being farmed, but the visuals are very less, or the or the name of the country doesn't come up in in those conversations about, you know, uh, you know, shark fin trade happening in Southeast Asia, but India is also a part of that. Uh we are exporters in in meat, uh leather, and all these things. So I reached out to We Animals saying that, okay, this is my, you know, this is what I do. Yes, it is more about conservation, but I also feel that these issues are a part of conservation because now everything is overlapping. I can't see wildlife and conservation separate from farmed animals or, you know, fishing communities or a community which is dependent on something like this for their livelihoods. It is all overlapping right now. There are livelihood issues, there's population issues, health issues, all of it is together. So I reached out to them and I did a couple of assignments, and then we've been working together since then. And it has also opened my eyes to a lot more different layers of the situation. Uh uh, because it also shows how what is happening in India is also being like, you know, it's it's also having an effect across the globe because we are the exporters.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

So Yeah, no, I read Yamini Narayanan's uh wonderful book, Mother Cow, Mother India, and it just does an incredible job of highlighting this kind of connection between the the politics, the politics of I mean cows in particular uh in India, but the the politics of animal relations in in your country are amazing. And I think it's one of the reasons why there is also incredible scholarship coming out of India with people making these um amazing, I mean, political and often quite um, I mean, very insightful ideas about how animals and humans uh relate with one another. And speaking about conflict, I think in a pretty authentic way, you know, we sometimes I think it's especially when animals make an appearance in news or media, it's done in this kind of like flowery or utopian way, and then or it's they're completely invisible, but kind of trying to unpack the real complexity of the conflict is often missing. And and there are people and animals increasingly at um uh in in boundary areas where rubbing up against one another in ways that are difficult for both the people and and the animals involved. Um now, Jen, I know you do a lot of work on politics and animals, uh, and and you think a lot across kind of thinking about uh politics, economics, uh, and perhaps not even animals. I I don't know if you would classify yourself as censoring animals or censoring primarily food uh in your journalism. Um and you're also a scholar. So how how did you how did you come to you know start to do these really quite like lengthy, in-depth uh reporting on on uh what you see going on in the world?

Jan Dutkiewicz :

Yeah, as you said, I mean I'm a professor, I'm a professor of political science at the Pratt Institute, I'm a contributing writer at Vox, I'm a contributing editor at the New Republic. And yeah, I guess I came to doing the type of public-facing writing I did just quite simply because I didn't see it existing and I had the unique opportunity to start doing it. So I have a I have a background, a professional background in the media, in the print media, before I went into academia, and then in academia I primarily studied the political economy of human-animal uh interaction primarily via the food system, primarily in the United States. And uh then once I sort of got into postdocs, I was postdocing at Hopkins, then I was at Harvard for a lot of years, and uh that just I I sort of felt like a lot of the things that I was um that I was researching just weren't being written about for a public audience. They were barely being written about in academia, but they certainly weren't being written about for uh for a public audience. And so that's what spurred me to, I mean, initially to start pitching with with relatively uh relatively limited success, actually. But I think once you know, once you get a yeah, Jessica's laughing, but yeah, I mean exactly because because I think there's a public interest. I think there's actually quite wide disconnect. Maybe we'll talk about this later, and maybe I'm leaping ahead here, but I think there's a quite wide disconnect between public interest in these issues and uh what editors think is newsworthy, right? And I and I think that's starting to come down. I mean, the existence of sentient, the existence of future perfect at Vox, which covers these issues quite a bit. I think the Guardian's quite good sometimes on these issues. But yeah, but I think I just that's how I did it. I just knocked on a whole a whole lot of doors, sent a whole lot of emails, and just got myself a foothold to then to the point where now I think that uh issues related to the food systems, issues related to the animal to animals in ways that aren't cutesy, but and also in ways that aren't sensationalized, in ways that are quite deep dives. And so yeah, do I consider myself an animal writer? I mean, it's a it's a fraught question. I mean, I mean, I don't I don't think so. I think, I mean, I'm I'm a vegan, I'm a quite outspoken vegan, and I care deeply about animal rights issues, but I really consider myself uh, you know, a political scientist and a political economist, and that's how I approach um that's how I approach my writing, and that's how I approach the issues that I choose to write about.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Yeah, I mean, all of your work is really uh fascinating, and I've enjoyed engaging with the material that the three of you have raised. And and like you say, I think what we're seeing is an increased acknowledgement that this is newsworthy uh to an effect, right? It is deserving of news. And sometimes, I mean, I'm I'm frustrated when I engage with people, um, scientists who are working on climate change and I'm not thinking about how climate is connected to food systems. It just seems like a completely obvious oversight. And I think you've done a lot of work to try and do, I suppose, some form of consciousness raising to say how how disconnected um these issues are. So, uh, what explains this uh this disconnect between editors and uh public interest?

Jan Dutkiewicz :

Look, I honestly think it comes down to uh speciesism, and I mean that quite literally, in the sense of not considering uh animals' interests as mattering or not considering uh the animal issue as potentially uh politically or socially salient on the part of on the part of editors, right? And but I mean it was the same in academia, right? I mean, again, this has changed over the past decade and a half that I've been in academia, but early in my time, it was extremely difficult to to publish articles or get accepted to conference or even have your work taken seriously if it involved taking animals seriously. And I think that's changed. And the reason I say that there's um that there's this disconnect is because if you look at any public opinion survey, at least in the United States, people broadly care about animal welfare, about animal issues. Once these uh these are often polarizing issues, especially when they touch on things like diet and when they touch on things like agricultural, political economy, but nonetheless, there's a there's a deep interest. And so once these stories are out, the stories tend to do well and generate debate and generate conversation. So, but it's just a matter of getting them out. And again, and I think over the past decade or so, this has changed uh quite a bit because I think who's making editorial decisions has changed, editors of um, you know, be it uh editors who cover political issues in the United States, you know, I'm thinking here of uh the Intercept or Wired are very interested in covering things like uh government crackdowns on activists, editors of places like The Guardian uh in who cover the environment are now very much cognizant of the environmental impacts of animal agriculture or the impact, for instance, uh anthropogenic climate change on animals and agriculture. So I think the door is sort of starting to be wedged open. But I absolutely think that there is this um yeah, I mean, look, editors are gatekeepers, right? And so editors' subjectivity, background, and individual prejudices or uh proclivities absolutely uh impact what gets what gets covered and and what doesn't. But I I absolutely think that in large scale legacy media and this conclude I mean if you read large scale legacy media, you'll see this. A lot of people think of animals as food, and it's really hard to think of taking animals. Seriously, right? When you're at an institution that's running, you know, reviews of steakhouses, and then you want to run something about the contribution of livestock to climate change or the politics thereof, and you're even looking at your stable of writers and who's gonna write it. And I don't want to name I don't want to name names in this context, but you look at, you know, you look at the New York Times or Bloomberg, yet you just don't have the capacity internally, right? Like if someone's trashing alt protein or writing beef recipe reviews or steakhouse reviews, and that's who you would point to to write your uh animals and climate story, like it's quite simply not going to work. Right? So it is uh, I mean, for lack of a better word, it's a human capital issue, it's a staffing issue, and it's a capacity issue at large scale at main, which is why I think smaller outfits like that either work that work with freelancers or that are focused on per particular issues, like sentient, for instance, are can be, of course, far more agile because this is what they this is what they cover.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

I wonder if this is also because of some of the, I mean, news has always struggled with this kind of tension between needing to bring in revenue and have kind of committed, accountable, objective reporting. Um, and that can sometimes lead, I mean, we've we've seen it with stories with regards to humans as well, but certainly with regards to animals, uh, how do you appease uh advertisers and as well as kind of reports on stories that matter? And how do you do it within, you know, the same publication? Broadsheets, newspapers used to struggle with the same thing. How do you have a story that's critical of an industry and then an advert of that industry in the same publication? And they always try to kind of pry it apart that these were different parts and you can't really ever smooth it over, but their job was to report what was reporting. And I don't know if I mean, perhaps to some extent, kind of the digitalization of news and the the fracturing of it has made this even more difficult. Um, Jessica, has does some of what Jan has said there kind of resonated with what you're with with your experiences of of breaking in?

Jessica Scott-Reid :

Yeah, absolutely. Um and I think the point that you made, Jan, about that once the the story is out there, they are so popular because I find so often I'm fighting to get particular topics into newspapers. And then once I do, they're extremely popular. And I like I knew they were going to be popular, but to convince an editor or an editorial team that this is something worthwhile is the tricky part. I think also I've experienced um conflict within editorial teams, where you have some sympathetic editors or some editors who see the value in these stories and those that don't, and that there has been struggles. I have noted on that that editors are somewhat arguing with each other whether or not to allow these stories to make it out there. I have found better success in the opinion section, which some may argue is a little bit less less legitimate. In some cases, it's not reported. Um, but in Canadian media, for example, because I have been so um opinionated in the opinion section, um I'm not often allowed to report on these topics. That would be considered a conflict. So I'm allowed to run a little bit more rampant in the opinion section. Um, and I think having these disagreeing opinions, dissenting opinions is more permitted. In fact, it's it's welcomed in a lot of publications. And so I've utilized that um strategy in order to make the points that I want to make and to bring to light things that I want to bring to light and to center animals in those stories in ways that reports don't. Um, Yan makes another good point is that animals are often discussed as food. They're also discussed as property. And so when we have reported pieces that talk about, say, I always use the example of a barn fire. We have, you know, report of a bonfire that will talk about the devastated farmer and the loss of monetary value, a loss of product. And almost nobody will talk about the devastation that came upon the animals. And almost never will an animal advocate be consulted or interviewed. I've I find this is changing now that I've called it out a couple of times in Canadian media. Um, we've we've seen more now, even um agricultural publications are actually talking to groups in Canada, say it's uh animal justice, to talk to them from a legal standpoint, even. And, you know, then you can talk about the plight of the animals. So I think it is changing, but um I like to utilize these different strategies of um creating relationships with certain editors of certain sections and hoping that they stay in that position for a long time and continue to let me say the things I want to say.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

But I mean, you you raise an important kind of aspect here is what is news, right? Um, you know, when we're talking about animals and media more broadly, there's a lot of avenues we could go through with regards to thinking about animals, right? Representations of animals in film has come up a lot in this season. Um, the kind of, I guess, responsibility we have to animals with regards to how we share images of them or even take images of them. Uh, you know, the kind of proliferation of selfies with wildlife is causing devastation for a lot of animals. Um, but then it comes to what is news, right? An opinion is an interesting kind of um, I want to almost say like a liminal space of news. Because it's not just, I mean, there are some publications where opinion, you can just kind of say whatever you want, but there is more justified and less justified opinions or more informed or less informed opinions. But then the question becomes, what is news? And I know we're getting a bit more broader here. Um, but before I move on, uh Shot Abdi, I don't know if you have anything to add to this kind of question of thinking through, you know, I guess editorial gatekeeping and public interest. So you come from a different context, right, to North America. Do you find similar kind of things going on in the newsrooms there?

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

Yeah, especially with what you mentioned regarding, you know, advertisers uh and and what you're reporting. So, but again, like with digital uh news agencies coming up, a lot of independent news agencies coming up, which are public funded, which work on subscriptions. So, there this aspect of you have to be careful about what you report because the advertiser, you know, for that particular segment of news is a particular food, whatever company. So with the digitization, I think there is a lot more space to tell uh, you know, these kind of stories where you don't have to be uh very like careful about what you're saying and all of that. Uh but the other tra the other, I think the other side of it is that in in like in India, from what I what I observe about the news and all, such topics are, I don't think are getting the uh reporters that they should be getting. Uh because it is also political right now, like especially. Uh so instead of talking about you know the health impact of on humans with regards to farmed animals, let's say, or the environmental impact, or the impact on uh, you know, agricultural fields which have poultry farms around them, like you know, these are things that impact the people directly and the land and the environment, but they don't get reported as such. They're not news. I I I think it it's almost like they're not newsworthy because uh people are more interested in like, you know, politics and all of that and sports and things like that. So yeah.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Yeah, it's it's interesting because I feel like there's this common refrain that we can't talk about animals until we've sorted out all human issues. Like, like somehow it's speaking about which it's um, I mean, Yen, you spoke about academia. I I see this often happening even in academic circles, that it's somehow an affront to put uh animals front and center, or or and I think there's definitely more appetite for climate um stories. Uh, and I I I don't know if you would agree with me here, but it seems like a lot of animal advocates and scholars and people are kind of getting their words in and their thoughts in about animals using a kind of climate route.

Jessica Scott-Reid :

And there seems to be a little bit of uh conflict there. I was just going to mention that that is um a strategy we see at sentient. Um, we're really um focusing much more now on the connection between um animal farming animal agriculture, climate change, and it's been, I think, a successful strategy, in my opinion, in order to bring in uh different audiences and to um get more into the environmental journalism space, which, you know, unfortunately, but is the case considered more legitimate. Um, and it's also allowed us to have conversations um with you know experts and certain people in certain spaces that we may not have before when we were more focused on, say, animal rights. So I think um I think it's a great way in and it's an external, it's it's it's an undebatable link. So you you can't you can't deny the connection. And it also goes with this one health aspect that um all things connected with human health, environmental health, and animal health are connected. So I think it's um it's a smart move and and it's working.

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

I just wanted to add on to something that Jessica said earlier. Um, so you know, like you were mentioning that when there is a you know fire or whatever, the loss is is kind of reported in terms of loss for the farmer or for the owner of that barn or whatever. Like similarly, here, like a couple of years ago, there there was a massive flood in Delhi where I am, and then uh even in other flood situations, we do get to see small clips of, you know, um pet animals being rescued. But I've not I've not maybe maybe there have been some uh reports, but I'm I've not come across those kind of clips showing, you know, let's say of uh, you know, dairy farm which which was flooded and how they rescued the and you know, all the cows over there in the farm. Those things are not there in the in the algorithm, you know. And even if there are these kind of stories about, oh, you know, the street dogs are being rescued and a shelter is being rescued and all, those are like those little happy, like they're kind of the narrative is like, oh, this is a cute story of, you know, human helping these animals and all. It doesn't go deeper into the issue of why they were like, you know, why is there a dairy farm which were from where animals, from where the cows need to be rescued during a flood? It doesn't go deeper. It becomes a cutesy story of feel-good story of, you know, rescue and you know, human-animal friendship and all of that. Nothing beyond it.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Yeah, I think it's a common, it's a common refrain. It's something that I find quite like frustrating when watching uh legacy media, or you know, the often the puff pieces at the end of what's been a really hard-hitting kind of session with speaking about the news, what's currently going on, will be like a soft but with like soft news. A soft news piece will often feature animals, and it'll often be this kind of like, oh, this animal had a baby in a zoo, for example, right? And it's it's somehow a heartwarming, and for folks, I think, who have an interest in animals or animal rights, this can be a bit jarring. Like, how are you looking at this situation and not seeing kind of structural problems that are um happening here with regards to, I mean, I think zoos and writing about zoos as problematic spaces is not really written about at all because they're seen as a kind of safe place for conservation. But it is interesting what does make it into the news and what doesn't with regards to the reporting. So uh as as you guys have said here, I do think news and diet and and to some extent factory farms are entering mainstream media and reporting a lot more. Um, conservation, I think, has been in the news for a long time, uh, especially with regards to thinking about which animals are going extinct or not extinct. There seems to be a sort of fascination. But what are what what stories are not being reported on? Uh, if you if you currently, if you look at the climate now, as animal journalism is kind of gaining more traction, what are the current gaps in in what journalists are reporting on?

Jessica Scott-Reid :

I can I can speak to the idea of of zoos that I have covered before in the past, a story about conservation washing uh in the Globe and Mail here in Canada, our national newspaper. Um, and I know my I've told people many times my motto when I'm writing these stories and pitching these stories is to be clever, not crazy, because so often it's assumed that a writer of my sort will be, you know, over the top and have these very animal rights militant ideas. And so I know when I'm writing particularly about zoos, to focus on something like conservation and say, um, you know, misinforming the public. Um, that's where I'm gonna focus instead of just, you know, wanting to say what I want to say, which is, you know, zoos are fundamentally flawed and these places are terrible and animals shouldn't be there. So you find, you find your way in to reach a mainstream audience where they're at. And that also convinces the editors that this is a story worthwhile for a mainstream audience. You will get in your points about the fundamental flaws of keeping animals in captivity, but you have to sort of couch it in these broader topics that might make, you know, somebody who would go to a zoo stop and think, oh, wait a minute, this maybe, this maybe pertains to me.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Do you think that your kind of commitment to animals, your veganism, gets in the way of you being able to be a reporter? Um, and I mean, I ask this because maybe it's a thing that people are are questioning. You know, I get a question about this as a scholar, you know, uh, kind of undermined. How objective can you be? How much can you really look at the data if you have this kind of uh political commitment or acknowledgement that things are unequal? And it's interesting because I don't know if we would ask the same thing of scholars and journalists who are committed to, let's say, human justice uh news stories. But yeah, let's let's leave it open. Do you think that your your veganism or your commitment to animals gets in in the way of your reporting?

Jan Dutkiewicz :

I mean, I would invert the initial question, right? If work is being published in be it in academia, in peer-reviewed journals, or in fact-checked news media, then the positionality of the scholar or their normative commitments should matter less. I mean, obviously they shape what the person's writing about. But if if we're pass if we're talking about peer review, we're talking about passing fact check, that shouldn't matter. I mean, in fact, I think the question should be asked why is someone who is committed to meat eating have sort of pride of place in reporting on animal issues or the links between animals and zoonata disease or animals and climate change or whatever else, right? And why is that question not the question that's being asked? Right? So in a in a sense, I f I feel like the question itself is uh is misleading, right? Like it it it sets it sets the wrong It s it sets the wrong sort of baseline for critique of of authors, right? And so I think it shouldn't I mean yeah, because similarly, like w why would we say that you know uh whatever people who aren't committed feminists should have pride of place in reporting on issues related to women and reproductive health and the right to choose, right? Like it sounds like an absurd question posed that way. So I would just I would say I would say that, and so I even so I even think people who care about these issues engaging seriously with a question like that. I mean, you don't have to defend your position, your positionality, right? Because you then you're automatically on the defensive on something you shouldn't be on the defensive of. The answer should be did the thing I write pass a rigorous fact check? Yes, okay. Next question, or did the thing I write pass a rigorous academic peer review? Yes, okay. Next question, right? Like engaging in a defense of the ad hominem when you don't have to is already seeding ground, is already putting yourself on a defense of when you absolutely shouldn't be. Right. So I just I just think that the very like fundamental conceit of the question undermines the nature of sort of as objective as possible journalism or academic research.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

I think that's beautifully said and so powerfully said.

Jessica Scott-Reid :

I was I was just gonna add that I often I'm accused of this sort of thing that because I often write in the opinion section or I write for places um like sentient that have a specific niche focus, that somehow I'm lying. And I will often say, you know, when we ask what is news, to me nowadays it's hard to define because you know things have gotten a little blurry, but to me it's it's a team. And this team involves fact checkers and editors, and it's not just me in a vacuum in the opinion section or writing for different uh websites or publications that are just saying whatever I want. Everything goes through scrutiny. And it's it's my name is the byline, but behind the story is multiple people, multiple departments. And these things are really a collective piece of work. And I don't think that people on the outside of news media really understand that part, that it's not just someone on a soapbox, that this is this is rigorously fact-checked, evidence-based, um, you know, cited with peer review studies. This is this is real. It's not just some vegan spouting off in the news.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Um, I mean, I think what you two have said here is so important because I mean, you spoke about gatekeeping happening. And I think gatekeeping can happen both from a person's kind of personal stance. You can have someone who's just against the idea of a story, or from how people ask or frame questions. That's definitely a way in which a form of gatekeeping happens. Um, but I so appreciate what you guys are saying here with regards to undermining without looking at the facts or the details that are on the page. Because there's this question of objectivity, right? And journalists have always geared themselves towards uh objectivity and sought to achieve it while at the same time acknowledging that it's also kind of an ideal. Like, how how do any of us separate ourselves from our personal uh commitments and lives and the ways in which we understand things?

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

Like sometimes there are topics which you cover where it becomes a little difficult to separate your personal thoughts about it, you know. Uh, but I think at the end of the day, as a photojournalist or as someone who's documenting reality as it's happening, uh we have to kind of remind ourselves that, you know, it is not about what I feel or what I am thinking about this. I am here to report what's happening right in front of me. Yes, I feel a certain way about it. That might uh, you know, change the way I'll frame a photograph or I'll frame, you know, I'll I'll use light in a certain way to depict a certain emotion, but I cannot manipulate the truth to match what I'm feeling. Because my job is to showcase reality as it is. So uh I think that that is the thin line you know we have to kind of always tread on uh that we can feel whatever we feel, but when we are in the field, we are doing that particular job because people who will watch the visuals or who or who will read these words, they are not, they don't have access to this, they don't know about this. And me being there is the only gateway for for them to know what is happening on ground. So I can feel what I feel, how passionately I feel separately, you know, maybe in conversations with friends where I can be actually really biased about something. But if I'm documenting something which is newsworthy, which is reporting something, then I have to be true to that also.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

And I suppose that also means, I mean, like you say, it's not about only reporting the things you like or the sentiments you agree with. You might find uh Jessica, I know you recently wrote a review of Liver King's documentary, and I so appreciated that you started that by saying you couldn't believe you found yourself nodding along with it, because there is a certain element of um with reporting that sometimes you have to acknowledge the things. Um, it's not about you personally agreeing or disagreeing with something, it's about reporting what's currently happening or what's currently going on. Um, really, really important. Uh, anyone else want to add to this? I feel like we're cutting to the heart. Of things. Yo, go ahead.

Jan Dutkiewicz :

Well, no, I mean I was gonna jump, I was gonna jump back to the previous question and also to what Jessica was saying. And again, and again, sort of challenge the premise of the question gently, in a friendly way, challenge the premise of the question, which is I feel like the qu the question about finding ways to cover animal issues, for instance, sort of, you know, you seem to suggest, and I could be wrong here, that we were talking, the implication was sort of like sneaking them in along with climate or along with zoonotic disease. But I just think that's absolutely I think that's again, I think that's the wrong framing, right? Like we know that food systems are contribute a quarter to a third of anthropogenic emissions. And in fact, even acknowledging that in the academic, environmental, and NGO space has been a battle. The animal question has been um, you know, the third rail of climate academia and climate politics as well. And so I think there's a so I wouldn't think of this as sort of like sneaking in the animal issue. I would see this as um, you know, uh putting it. I mean, I I sort of I hate the like, you know, adding to the debate academic framing, but adding into the debate and making the links in academic research, making the links in public discourse between animals and climate, animals and zoonotic disease, or you know, uh animal agriculture and water use or whatever else. And I don't see that as making it a quote unquote animal issue. I just see it as acknowledging the role of whatever it is, right? Like land use change, uh concentrated animal feeding operations, growing crops for animal use or whatever else as being a major constituent part of whatever issue is being reported on. You're right, be it again, being tsunami disease, be it climate. So I just I absolutely just think that it's not about like sneaking the animal question in. It's about acknowledging the magnitude of the animal question within whatever other issue is being is being talked about, right? And the reason I say that is because you know, before livestock's Long Shadow came out, it was sort of anathema to speak about the role of ruminants and methane emissions in uh you know in anthropogenic climate change. And then the authors of that within the FAO have, and there's again, there's extensive uh journalism which proves this is the case, were attacked. They were attacked by national delegations, they were attacked by lobbies again, ad hominem attacks were lobbyans, and these people were sidelined within the FAO uh academics. You know, we saw a similar thing with uh Eat Lancet. And so even just stating basic facts is attacked by the very organizations, be it the intergovernmental organizations or the academic bodies that are themselves, you know, ostensibly meant to uh defend and promulgate objective research, right? So, yeah, so I mean, just saying something like ruminants contribute X percent to anthropogenic climate change is not sneaking in the animal, so it's stating a fact, and it's stating a fact that the very organizations that should be backing the stating of these facts have shied away from stating explicitly because of uh political and public blowback.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Yeah. So I mean, yeah, I hear you uh talking about animal agriculture is fundamental to talking about these issues. If you're talking about zoonosis or the threat of disease and you're not speaking about animal agriculture, you're missing a fundamental slash critical part of what this conversation is. Uh it's almost poor reporting to some extent if it's not included in this kind of uh discussion. Precisely.

Jessica Scott-Reid :

Precisely, or talking about methane without talking about ruminants.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Yeah.

Jessica Scott-Reid :

Right? It's just it's not an honest discussion if those things are omitted.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

But I do think, so I mean, I hear you, and and 100% I'm I'm with you here. When you watch these documentaries talking about climate change and there is zero mention of animal agriculture, like you think, okay, well, how much research went into doing this? Like it has to be an active decision at this point to not include animal agriculture in this kind of reporting. Um it seems to me like an active omission, uh, if not just ignorance. But when it comes to reporting, and and and I mean we can continue on both of these streams. I think there is, to some extent, the acknowledgement and the reporting of the size and the scale of animal agriculture, that this type of farming contributes to these huge uh crises. But something that I don't think is reported, and this, and this perhaps speaks up to uh a little bit to what Jessica was mentioning earlier, is the experiences slash deaths of these animals. You know, like this is happening at two levels. Yes, the farming and eating of these animals is contributing to global crises. Uh, and I think that is gaining some traction. And when I was talking about quote unquote sneaking in the animal, I think I was also saying to what extent can we acknowledge that the animals experience being in these situations, right? Because people don't really take that on board as being really an important part of this conversation of climate change, et cetera.

Jessica Scott-Reid :

I wanted to add to both of the points regarding um how to report on animal issues and doing it in a way that centers the animal, that keeps our feelings out of it and just allows the experience to be reported on, is that I'll often tell people who take a workshop, if I'm writing for whether it's animal activists or freelancers, is to just let the facts speak for themselves. Even if you're writing in a reported piece, um, or if you're writing for specific outlets that require you to, you know, uh focus on a particular beat. The facts in this case, when we're talking about the impacts of animal agriculture on the climate, we're talking about, you know, animal welfare issues and factory farming, the facts are bad enough. The facts are stark enough and the facts are backed up enough. So if we can just focus on the facts without any kind of emotive language over the top expression, we don't need to. And I feel like so much of the expectation from mainstream audiences when reading on topics like this is for that to happen, is for things to be exaggerated and overblown. Um that really works counter to what we're trying to express. And so I think it's best to let the facts speak for themselves and we can, because they're bad enough.

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

Yeah, I think um the it is it also uh it's also important to kind of uh tell the story, like report the story or tell the story in such a way that whoever is reading it or watching it, it it impacts them regarding themselves. Like if I talk about, oh, okay, aqua farms in you know this river basin is harming the mangroves, okay, people will readably like, okay, fine, like it's not impacting me, I don't care. But if I say that because of the aqua farms, the groundwater is impacted, the soil fertility is impacted, the local people in that area cannot use the groundwater because it's all it's all polluted now. Then when it becomes about their own safety, their own survival, their own health, then it becomes more important for them as well. You know, if I sit here and talk to somebody and tell them that, okay, you know, the if you're eating the chicken, do you even know what is going behind the scenes, you know? It'll instantly be, yeah, whatever, you know, uh I'm I like the butter chicken I eat. Because what has also happened is that uh people in the cities, especially cities and towns nowadays, you get your meat in nicely packaged uh boxes. You know, you are not seeing the blood, the gourd, the suffering, you're not going to the local butcher shop, seeing it being butchered live. It comes in these neat plastic boxes, you know, in 10 minutes. You order it online and it's there in your house. So that creates like a like a disconnect between suffering and what's on your plate. So when you start talking to them about these kind of issues, because they don't connect with it like in that sense, they will not listen to what you have to say. But if you say that, okay, do you know that because of the stress this hen has been in the in the poultry farm, these, these, these health issues can happen to you because you're consuming the meat. That may impact them thinking, okay, it's about my health now. So I think uh at times you also need to change the perspective to kind of make it make the reader or the audience think about their own selfish reasons, and through that you're bringing the animal context to it.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Yeah, and is that fair? Does that address some of your critiques? Or do you think we're still just sneaking in the animal?

Jan Dutkiewicz :

Well, no, no. I mean, I just I don't think what I'm saying is I don't think you're ever really sneaking in the animal. I think if the animal issue is salient, then it should be covered, just like any other aspect of any given case should be covered. I mean, I so and then and then how that's framed, I think, is a contextual issue, right? Right? If if one is covering whatever, like the ill health effects of the under-regulation of slaughterhouses, then absolutely, then you should state that it can have ill health effects on consumers, right? Or whatever, right? If you talk about the contribution of ruminants to climate change, then that's just a fact that states that, you know, we can't hit certain warming targets without addressing ruminant agriculture. And I think so. I think as long as you're not sort of being maudlin or overwriting, like Jessica said, then I think the the quote unquote animal issue should just be treated as a part of the story. If we're talking about news as a part of the story, where fits as a part of the story. And if a part of that story is animal suffering, then that's the story, right? And those are stories that themselves resonate when that's the story. So, for instance, you know, early in COVID with ventilation shutdown on pig farms, ventilation was shut down in factory farms, and animals literally cooked alive in their own body heat. That's a fact, it's a biophysical fact. You don't have to dress that up, but that's also the story. Ventilation shutdown and animal suffering is the story there. And again, that's a story that resonates. Like the sheer volume of coverage of ventilation shutdown, you know, by people like uh Matt Johnson getting undercover footage in Iowa and whatnot, those are stories people care about. I think if people feel like they're not being clubbed over the head with something that is being snuck in, but if the story is mass scale animal suffering, readers care about that. The public cares about that.

Jessica Scott-Reid :

I think too often the problem with mainstream media, which is such a loaded way to start a sentence, is that so often it's it's progressing the message of the industry. And so often it's only industry people who are interviewed. So if we go back to our barn fire story, um, as an example, you'll talk to, say, dairy farmers of Canada, in my case, if it if a dairy farm has burned down instead of talking to animal advocates. Whereas we see other topics, say if it's regarding child safety or human rights, you will have advocates who are always interviewed. And in and you won't have industry interviewed when it comes to the plight of vulnerable beings and vulnerable communities. So I think the idea of animals being treated in the mainstream media, even as living beings and a vulnerable community that requires advocacy is new and unfortunate. But that, like like Janna's talking about the fact that animals suffer is a fact, that is something that I think has yet to be fully digested by mainstream media editors and audiences. And once you have that fact in place, then your next steps towards finding sources to talk about that suffering, um, that happens afterwards. But that has to be recognized first.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

And what do you have any examples? I mean, I think giving that example a moment ago with the ventilation shutdown really helped to kind of cement some of what you're saying here. So perhaps we could maybe talk about some of these examples, news stories, um, you know, because part of this episode, I mean, it's thinking about what is news, but also the significance of news. Do you have any stories like the ventilation story that it's it's clear this was news done well, and this is news that's had an impact that people are speaking about? Um, any any other thoughts or examples there?

Jan Dutkiewicz :

I think there are there are numerous ones, right? I mean, very many undercover, long-term well-done undercover investigations that get coverage have been shown up in literature done by ag school economists in the short-term reduced demand for the meat where it's shown. And you know, in the in the UK, the large investigation of uh dairy cruelty had, you know, everything. Like even the the very validity of like the red tractor, you know, like farming third-party certification seal was in question. There were debates in major British media about whether or not you could trust third-party farm, you know, sort of whatever like farm animal welfare verifiers. And so I think that numerous stories. I think where, again, where the story clearly shows something like animal cruelty, that can set off sort of have broad-based effects on everything from consumer behavior to to public debate. So I think there are a number of there are like I I think there are more examples that we could point to. And I think very, very, very many undercover investigations done well that are picked up speak to this.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

I saw one recently about um pandas and just kind of this exchange of pandas, the kind of politics of panda exchange, right? Also in investigative reports and and just looking, I mean, we all kind of know that China owns all pandas and they're taken to different zoos uh and they're used as political pawns. But this was an unbelievable, uh, and I wish I could say tell you who um reported it, I'll put it in the show notes, but it was really incredibly well done. Uh, not only in terms of highlighting, I think, the broad brushstrokes that many of us know about pandas, but going into depth and detail with regards to how pandas are bred, the situations in which they live, the ways in which they're mobilized as political tools, and also the failures of conservation. Because I think so often, you know, we've spoken here about animals, but there's also things adjacent to animals, right? Uh consumption is one of them, uh, conservation is another one of them, and maybe adjacent's not the right word, but conservation is so often framed as this uh unbelievably positive thing that you don't critique. The conservation is beyond critique. And in this piece about pandas, what I thought was quite interesting is they said, okay, well, uh the panda rehabilitation and breeding program was all done on the premise of releasing pandas back into the wild. No pandas have been released or set free. So, what is actually going on here in this breeding program and just probing that question? So they're stating the facts, that's part of news stories. But I also think the the opening up of a question can do a lot of work with readers and viewers as well. Just getting to ponder about a question like that. Um, Shisabdi, do you have thoughts on like how conservation is reported and and framed?

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

Yeah, I think uh so because I like my work is in this country, and you know, a lot of my context will come from what I'm observing, what I'm seeing. Uh India has a great uh, you know, let's say, success in terms of getting the tiger back, getting the one horn rhinoceros back. You know, these were all dedicated programs for these species to get them back from the brink of extinction. Uh but now we are at a at a state where I think we need to start addressing the, you know, the rising population, the conflict, because we are the largest country with some of the largest megafauna living, you know, where we are sharing space, where we are sharing resources. And now it is becoming a fight for survival for both. So we have to start looking at, you know, when conservation stories are addressed regarding, let's say, conflict or uh developmental issues, you know, developmental infrastructure which is now cutting through a forest, one has to look at it like from a larger perspective where everything is taken into consideration because conservation without the other aspects cannot be, you know, uh dealt with, and the other aspects without keeping conservation a part of it cannot be done. You can't have we right now it's June. It's supposed to be peak summer, along with like some parts of the country having the monsoon rains, but we are having floods. Uh, we have had unseasonal rains in so many parts when it's supposed to be peak summer, you know, hot and dry and humid, it has rained randomly. Uh farmers do not know when to, you know, now plant, when to cut, when to harvest, when to do what, because the the predictability of the weather has changed. And if you if you start connecting the dots, you will see it is because you know, hundred or thousand acres of land of forests were destroyed a few hundred kilometers away because some road had to be built. Or you know, so so you cannot talk about conservation in separate uh terms, you know, right now all of it is interlinked. You can't one cannot be looked at separate from the other. So even with conservation, if we are talking about the success of you know, tiger population increasing or any any other programs happening, we have to see the context. What is happening to those tigers? Do we have enough forest corridors for them to now start relocating to other forests? What are there roads cutting through those forest corridors? You know, what is going to happen when they come straight, you know, face to face in a in a in a human habit habituated land? Because they are just trying to, they are following the natural instinct and trying to disperse. So these are the questions now now that we need to start talking about. Yes, uh, you know, saving animals and saving wild species, that has happened. But now what?

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Yeah. And and the that kind of complexity, I mean news, I feel like maybe maybe I'm being unfair, has become dumber somehow. Like the level of complexity in news, and maybe I'm not fair, but and maybe I'm not reading the right things. It depends on the the sources you have. But I sometimes feel slash fear that the level of complexity in reporting is diminishing. And to have this kind of conversation, to talk about conservation and say, okay, what happens when the numbers do increase? You know, we we talk about let's improve animal numbers, and I think it's a marvelous goal. And their numbers are still, even our populations that are increasing are still a shadow of what they once were. But you've got increasingly having situations where animals are reaching kind of capacity and they have nowhere else to move because there's no land or habitat. I had um a vet on from Uganda on the show where there are mountain gorillas for the first time that are doing well. They're like, whoa, they're a success story. They've got nowhere else to move. They're surrounded by villages. So then this kind of complexity requires, I think, a different kind of political response and also a nuanced reporting, right?

Jessica Scott-Reid :

Yeah, I think nuance is an important part. And nuance is something that I know editors are are looking for more and more now than ever. Um, nuanced takes, especially because, you know, politically in North America, everything's got become so black and white, so right and left, that nuance is increasingly becoming important and sought after. And when we're talking about animal stories in particular, um, I think that's another important way of bringing in a variety of audiences is offering nuanced takes, admitting where things have been, say, oversimplified or overshot, um, and then looking into the facts of the matter. And I think increasingly with news, as you say, it's gotten dumber. I think it's because there's too many outlets, there's too many um um things that are considered news that would not have been considered news before. And so this is when fact checking and editorial teams become more important, uh, even legal teams become more important than ever. Before. And I think that gray area of nuance where we have a little bit of discussion and analysis is key in these types of topics.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Yeah, I know you've written about media literacy before. And you wrote a really great piece, I think, talking about podcasts. Because I think there is this blurring of news, even raising the question of what is news. It used to be so kind of clear. It was almost based on the outlet of what news was. But now, the same way as, and I'm sure you can relate to this, my husband's also a photographer. The same way as now everyone who's got a cell phone is somehow a photographer. And everyone who can write a blog entry is somehow a journalist. And anyone can become these things. I think there has been a democratization that technology has allowed for. But it's sometimes I don't know how to frame this. Is there a crisis of authority, I suppose, to some extent? Is there a do people know which voices to trust and not to trust?

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's uh, I'll just add a little bit to what you were saying. Like you said, like, yeah, everyone with a camera, you don't today can with a phone, like, you know, you are out there in the world, you know, with whatever is there in your in your capacity. Uh but the problem is that because of this digitization, because of this access to technology and the digital medium, a lot also, like a lot of misinformation and a lot of disinformation is also just going out as news or opinion of uh subject, so-called subject matter experts, you know, like especially in these kinds of spaces. So if you're a photographer and you're going documenting, let's say, the wildlife in in nature parks and you do these, you know, uh videos and put yourself out there, you're you're not a subject matter expert, you're not a scientist, you're not a tiger behavior, you know, someone who has studied tiger behavior for 30 years, that you can start giving your opinion on why this tiger did this. But because of the fame and because of the visibility, people take these kind of opinions very seriously and think it's fact when it's not. Anything to do with wildlife or science or climate change or environment, it is science-based. So if if you're a practitioner of some other sort of art form or whatever, you are not the subject matter expert. You can share your opinion, but at least read up before sharing something, you know, before discussing about tiger behavior, read up. Don't make your own stories about this is what the guide said and this is what the driver told me. That doesn't become fact. So that risk is there.

Jessica Scott-Reid :

I think that's why that's why these that's why these positions of fact checkers and misinformation and disinformation correspondents, like I'm doing for Sentient Now, you see more and more of these outlets creating these positions as these um, you know, people who are keeping track of the myths and keeping track of the misinformation and disinformation, which we know is purposefully put out into the world to disinform people. I think that that's it's it's gonna become a more important position than ever, especially now with the you know infiltration of AI information and and and imagery into uh media spaces. Um, debunkers like myself are gonna be very busy.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Everyone's talking about AI at the moment and what you know, what the next 10 years or 20 years are gonna look like. And I I think there's gonna be a kind of step back towards media that people used to rely on, a kind of I think privileging of more analog forms of. And maybe I'm maybe, maybe this is utopian, and I think there's probably gonna be a split. But I I I think that people are gonna be more in desire of hearing from perhaps experts or people with authenticity. Or do you think it's just gonna be this is gonna make it? I mean, it is, it's gonna make it so much more difficult to really uh know what's going on, right? The the the digital space, the digital news space has already made things really difficult with just the numerous amounts of voices and numerous amounts of opinions. Um yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I never know where to take this conversation.

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

Yeah, I think that the di Yeah, like the digital space has done both. It has given you the freedom to be an independent voice, but it has also this other side where you know you have internet, you have a phone, and you just you can say whatever you want to. So that accountability is is there in very few of these voices, uh, and is lacking in a lot. Like there is a viral clip these days about an Indian tourist which who got mauled uh in one of those tiger petting things in walks in Thailand. And we have uh, you know, wildlife influences in our country uh talking about, like kind of sensationalizing the whole thing because it's a hot topic. So, you know, they have picked it up and they're talking about it. But the like the misinformation being kind of sensationalized is the fact that this person is saying uh in his in his opinion piece that uh these tigers are snatched from their mothers when they are young. That's not true. These are captive-bred tigers, they are not taken from the wild. So you are sensationalizing something where you are a wildlife influencer, you know it is wrong, but you know you will get more clicks and more views if you sensationalize it like this. So who is now accountable for these kind of uh things happening? That is that is also a bit scary.

Jan Dutkiewicz :

Yeah, I mean, look, this is this is a much broader discussion that's been going on among media watchers and scholars for a long time. But I think, yeah, I mean, I think look, broadly speaking, I like I don't think you can generalize about the future of media. I think some people will be pulled back to legacy media and fact-checking, which I personally think they should be, right? Like for all, like warts and all, legacy media relies on an editorial process and a fact-checking process, which is how you ensure to the extent possible the veracity of reporting, which simply doesn't exist in podcast land and substack land and social media, right? And this is why, and I so I think media literacy is important, but I also think, you know, to the extent possible, you know, uh regulation is important, but also people supporting legacy media, right? And so I I don't have a I don't have a solution. I don't know if anyone has a solution, but I think it's absolutely but I think disinformation, sensitization, absolutely social media is a problem, but so is this sort of like new whatever you want to call it, the sort of like opinion world of podcasts and substackers and whatever else, which as far as I'm concerned, is just people running away from peer review. Or sorry, excuse me, not peer review, but fact check. Or both, right? Or both, both, right? Like, right, and so all these people who are just like, oh, I just want to be like an unshackled free thinker, it's like, no, you don't. You just want to spread bullshit on like unshackled from peer review and fact check, right? And so I think to the ext like but this is but it's really a question of what there's a market for and how these things are regulated. I think I think there is no solution, but I think that absolutely the spread of I mean, I know we're on a podcast, but the spread of sort of podcast culture and the and you know, and the spread of substack culture and the spread of influencers in social media has been absolutely, absolutely devastating in terms of spreading misinformation and half-truths and disguising opinions as if they were facts or providing selective or poor readings of um everything from you know current events to um to scholarship. And I think this is unfortunate, you know, because I think there are a lot of good podcasts, for instance, that we'll have experts on to discuss issues, but for every one of those, there's just you know, like a sensational stub stacker who's just making up nonsense, right? And so I think we're in a very fractured space. And I think, you know, people like Jessica, but I think a lot more of this is needed, is people who push for media literacy and sort of allowing finding ways to educate average, because we're talking about average consumers of news to distinguish, right? Distinguish between opinion and say sensationalism and real fact-checked news or real peer-reviewed scholarship. And I think this is a huge challenge of our time, which goes far beyond, you know, far beyond animal issues.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

And I mean, I think there should be a space for people to have conversations and views, but there is a way in which we could consume and produce better with more accountability and more responsibility. And I think, I mean, it's again the problem and the challenge of echo chambers of algorithms that are feeding you very the same stuff again and again and trying to even break out of that. Um, and and this for me, I read a newspaper the other day in an airport space, and I was like, wow, I'm consuming stuff that I would never be normally. There's something about picking up a magazine or a newspaper where you're gonna be exposed to stories that you might not normally have come up on your Facebook feed or your Instagram. Like you're just gonna find yourself reading about the history of penguins in Peru, and that's not gonna make it on your, you know, you you get an eclectic mix of of information, some of which you agree with, some of which you don't agree with. And I think there's something to be said for, uh and I'm speaking here like a geographer, but the space of the page, right? Having a newspaper where you're being exposed to a variety of titles, a variety of opinions and views. Um, and and and yeah, I think that there's something to be said for that. And yeah, I love having a podcast and having a conversation with experts, but we are not news, we are not news um reporters. And and this is part of kind of creating these distinctions of what is my role as a podcaster and what is the role of a journalist. And there is some blurring. Um, but yeah, it's it's tough, you know.

Jan Dutkiewicz :

I mean, I sort of I sort of wonder about the directionality of the news consumption, right? Because in a sense, you'd want, I mean, this is sort of like, you know, this is a truism now, but you know, back in back in the day, uh everyone would sort of watch the nightly news and you get Walter Cronkite, and he sort of tells you what the news of the day is. And then off a shared set of facts, which you can, you know, presume are more or less factual issues, you can have debates and you can form opinions, right? Whereas now you sort of you don't that step can be obviated. You can just get opinion, right? Or you can get primed for engagement with fact-checked uh news or with um peer-reviewed science through opinions. You can get primed by these sort of opinion formation, right? Which is that, you know, whatever the UC Davis Clear Center, whatever bullshit they're manufacturing, right, biogenic methane. And so then by the time you get to a report on methane's contribution to anthropogenic climate change, you're primed to not believe it because you've digested the sort of like biogenic methane or GWP star nonsense, or or whatever else, right? Or if you get primed by someone who's saying, oh, you know, all ultra-processed foods are bad, by the time you get to sort of like a nuanced treatment of like the problems, the Nova classification, the fact that soy-based ultra-processed burgers are actually more heart healthy than a beef burger, you're primed to not believe the facts. And I think that directionality of consumption, that priming in sort of opinion land or non-fact-check land for engagement with facts is a real, is a real problem, especially when opinion land is like a curated algorithm or is just sort of um, you know, confirming people's priors, even if those priors are not factual, right?

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Yeah. So it seems like news is in crisis. I mean, not only with reporting about animals and environmental stuff. I mean, when we spoke about animals and and the climate crisis earlier, you know, we said that a lot of the reporting, there is a lot more interest, public interest in this kind of reporting, right? And we acknowledge that that's happening. But now this conversation, assuming that even though there is this public interest, kind of getting to the facts is increasingly more difficult. There's a lot more noise, there's a lot more challenge in trying to understand and understand fact from fiction or misinformation and active disinformation, right? So the question then becomes um, and forgive me, but I uh be remiss if I didn't ask you. So, what do we do from here? If people want to be more uh better consumers of news and better producers of information uh regarding animals and regarding the industries in which they're implicated, what are some of the tactics and things that they should be doing? Jan's eyes just like sources.

Jan Dutkiewicz :

Well, no, no, because look, I mean, I think going to your previous question, I think we're there are different publics, right? Like there are different there are different publics who are differently informed. And so I think the problem is perhaps even less about getting to facts, about about as about getting to shared facts, right? And I'm just rehearsing things people have been saying about you know electoral politics, but just agreeing on a shared set of facts based on which we can have political debates or debates of any kind. And I think that that's an issue. But yeah, I mean, look, my basic soapbox is get off social media, delete Facebook, delete Instagram, delete Twitter, and subscribe to legacy media. Real journalism costs money, right? Subscribe. I mean, subscribe to the New Republic, subscribe to Vox, give some money to sentient. Right? Pay for real journalism. Real journalism is a product, and then get your news from that. Whether or not this suggestion falls on deaf ears or not is a different story. But that's what I'd say. If you want to engage with facts and get news, go to news sites, pay for news sites, don't go to Substack, don't you know, and that's really it.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Because oftentimes people are also paying for Substack. And it's not to now say, you know, don't support people that are opinion, but I think we somehow maybe think of media houses as having large amounts of money and being flush with cash.

Jan Dutkiewicz :

But yes, and they're and they're not. They're not, right? Like in in print media in North America, I mean, the new maybe the New York Times is flush with cash. Right? But I don't think a lot of other um outlets are. And they require, you know, and they require support. I mean especially as advertising dollars are spread throughout a much broader media sphere, people need to, you know, vote with their dollars and support support media, right? And it's not and it's not a tremendous amount. Like you can be a you can be a you can subscribe to all the VOX Pro content, for instance, for $40 for a year, right? Like it's not it's not an onerous amount of of money, but it does cost, but it does cost money. And I think but I think this is also part of the problem, right? That social media gives you stuff, you know, it might not be facts, it might be nonsense, but it's free. Yeah, right. And the sort of constant thing where if you post something on, let's say you post something on social media and people will say, Oh, it's got a paywall, I'm not gonna read it. Well, it's like most of course you should like it. Of course it has a paywall. How do you think people pay journalists? Like the way around the paywall is a subscription, right?

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

And what you see on social media is not free, right? Like I think that's also a bit of an illusion while you're not. Sure, sure. Yeah, of course. Yeah. You know, it's it's not free. You're you're being paid, it's being paid for with the advertising and with um also some form of manipulation. It's not free. And I, you know, I hadn't thought of it before. You know, I'd always thought about advertisers kind of feeding into legacy media, but our subscription could also, to some extent, maybe undermine the weightiness of advertisers, because when they are so dominant in the income of media, it it does. I mean, I don't want to say compromise because they've got, you know, regulations to deal with this type of stuff. But that our subscriptions really do matter, that journalists do good work. They're one of the most difficult and and deadly professions in the world and are perhaps not rewarded with stable jobs and incomes, right?

Jan Dutkiewicz :

Yeah, no, I mean the media is in the media's objectively in a crisis. Right? Look at the number of outlets that have closed in the United States or or downsized in in recent years. Right? I mean it let the like the fourth estate is crucial and it requires money. Right? Like you No, I mean that's that's that's really that's really it. Like it's one of these things, like it's it's simple when you say it. Getting there is difficult, but like yeah, just if people want good news, they should pay for good they should pay for news. And also, and and of course there's like a rule for state funded media. So, you know, in Canada, you know, Mark Carney has said that he'll make CBC funding statutory, which is a really good sign. But in you know, in the United States, public media is under attack. And so, yeah, and so so to the extent we want private, independent, fact-checked, reliable media, that's gonna cost money. And we should just be honest about that. And people should be, you know, should be honest about that with themselves. If you want good journalism, you need to pay for good journalism. I've now said the same thing like five times, but I think it it is that simple. And it's just a matter of like No, it's really so important.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

And I'm happy you also drew in the distinction there with public versus uh private media, because I think public, you know, here Austria has a very um, you have to pay for your TV license, right? And a lot of people are frustrated for paying for their TV license, but you're like that money is going directly into ensuring that public media and the extent to which people watch public uh media is also in there's a lot more in the way of kind of clicking onto Netflix and watching a streaming service, but there is something to be said. If if everything were to go belly up, your public media would be the ones that are communicating vital, important emergency information to you that are getting news to you and stories um that matter, PSAs, public service announcements. It's and not to say that this can't be abused, and there aren't examples of governments abusing this, but it remains important. Um, all right. So sorry, we've been talking for, I can't believe we've been speaking for an hour already. Um let's turn to your guys' quotes, unless anyone has something else they want to add here before we move on. Um, but the quotes are a nice way to kind of perhaps pull out some last-minute conversations and thoughts, and then we'll start wrapping things up. Uh, anyone want to start? Kick us off.

Jessica Scott-Reid :

Um, so mine is a bit unconventional. It's actually a blurb for a book. Um, so um, a friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Jason Henan at the University of Winnipeg, he wrote or he edited a book in 2020 called Meat Spleening, the animal agriculture industry and the rhetoric of denial. Um, it's contributed by a bunch of activists talking about um different ways in which the meat industry sort of denies their contribution to animal suffering and climate, uh, climate change. So um in her blurb for the book, my other friend and colleague, Camille Lab Chuck, she is the executive director of animal justice. She's a lawyer here in Canada, animal rights lawyer. Um, she writes cruelty thrives in secrecy, and the meat industry is highly skilled at concealing the routine abuse and misery that flourishes on modern farms. Meat spleening cuts through the spin and exposes the meat industry's massive PR machine, which I think really is the responsibility of journalists in general to hold industry and governments and companies accountable to cut through the spin and expose the manipulative and inaccurate and harmful PR that supports the oppression of animals and so many other vulnerable communities and beings.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

I think what that also raises. Or makes me think about is how big industry, it's not only that we're not hearing animal stories, it's that big industry is also funding specific stories. Like you said, the spin, there's there's studies that industry is behind stories. And this adds to that noise we were talking about, right? It's not just a bunch of lonely podcasters creating the noise, it's also industry-backed large amounts of money that are adding to this noise, right? And and that's um, yeah, there's kind of lobbying going on to get your minds and thoughts.

Jessica Scott-Reid :

And and to and to to to change the narrative, right? And so that's again where these these um this misinformation and disinformation comes into play is that a lot of it is it's not it's not an accident. A lot of it is uh industry-backed and is very well funded. And we know that with the with the you know, the ultra-processed meat narrative that came about very much from uh indust uh PR companies from meat industry-backed um groups. And so we have to make sure that as journalists, we hold, you know, truth to power and hold these types of industries and their spin accountable and having the tools to work through um, you know, industry jargon and language that's used to often paint um animal issues or food issues a certain way that comes with uh media literacy on part of the reader, but also um is important for journalists to not be swayed by industry groups, lobby groups, and their narratives about these topics.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

What role does state regulation play here? You know, like I see an advert of McDonald's saying they're green burger that's environmentally and climate friendly. And I'm like, wait, hang on, how does this, you know, and and there's a role of journalists here to call out that bullshit. But there's also what role does regulate, you know, there's a lot of stuff happening here in Europe at the moment about what is a sausage and what what can we call milk and what can we call milk? And yeah, I yeah, I'm just curious to know your thoughts on what role.

Jessica Scott-Reid :

That's another industry, that's another industry tool, right? Going after terminology, nomenclature labeling has been a tool used by the meat industry, the animal agriculture industry to thwart the efforts and success of plant-based products. Um, and so it is up to you know governments and regulatory agencies to look into why these things are being questioned to begin with. Like, I think we talk so much in the media, like, you know, people Jan and myself, who will who will look at things like labeling issues and go down that rabbit hole. But if it weren't for us, who else is gonna do it? That's my question, is often like, where where are the government regulators who are looking into this farm that claims it has free-range chickens? Like if we're not looking into it, or if activists, even grassroots activists aren't looking into it, it just wouldn't be looked into. And I think that's a big problem.

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

That's true. And there's such a gap between, you know, uh what's on paper as policy and what's implemented on ground. So again, like like Jessica was saying, like, if we don't get these evidences out, then nobody will know. And like we have, like in India, there are situations where like, you know, a corporation which is backed by a mining company is actually funding a study on biodiversity in our grassland. Like, how does it make sense? You know, that eventually that mining company will take over that land and dig it. Because on paper, grasslands are like wastelands, so you know, it's it's not that tough to take over that land. But that that piece of habitat supports so much of wildlife, and it could be the only green space in that little, you know, area which is then surrounded by urbanization. But that study is being backed by a mining company. So, you know, we don't see the the narrative that we are being pushed into. You know, there it's there's so much of there's so many different glasses that are put in front of our eyes. Um, you know, always seeing visuals of, oh, look, the wildlife is so beautiful, oh, such beautiful green forests and rivers and oceans, but reality is rapidly changing, and we are not seeing enough of those visuals. So we are not even connecting with what's happening on ground.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

With these concepts, and the connections you're talking about. You mentioned earlier, kind of just making those connections explicit, like all of you have been saying, you know, say what's happening, make those connections visible. Um, and yeah, and and that then makes it easier, I suppose, for policymakers, uh, for other practitioners to also have these conversations and perhaps to uh implement some form of change.

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

And how will you, as a citizen, how do you even hold power to accountability? You know, because you you are told that, okay, this is the law, this is the policy. So as a citizen, you would believe that it is being implemented. You are not going to go to the farms and to the fisheries to see what's happening on ground. You will believe that the food I'm buying is coming from is sourced well, it is nutritious, there is no pesticides used in in the agriculture and all of that because it says organic. But it is, unless you show the citizens the evidence, they will believe that that narrative which has been told to them, that organic means healthy and fine and all good and all well, and you eat it.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

What about consumers of media kind of feeling inundated by just all the critique and all the criticism? I mean, I mean, I suppose this is not your responsibility as journalists, as people with the news, it's not your role to protect the consumers of news, but that there is perhaps a kind of shutdown where if if we're just so critical of if the government is screwing up, if industry is screwing up, if everything is just going to to shit, um, you know, I I guess consumers of media also start switching off. Maybe this just speaks to that same problem earlier. And and and maybe that's not the role, that's not the role of journalists to be concerned with that. Um, but is it something that concerns you, something you've thought about in your work, any of you?

Jessica Scott-Reid :

Well, I think that's the that's why the rise of solutions journalism that's becoming much more popular now is solutions-based journalism. And I think that that's part of the reason is because of reader fatigue and you know, things like climate anxiety and information glut, I think is is leading to people turning away from bad news. And so solutions-based journalism is sort of a newer idea where everything comes with a solution, albeit um with caveats, of course, to be nuanced and accurate. But solutions-based journalism is allowing people to, I think, feel a little bit more positive about what they're reading.

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

And also hopeful, because everything else everything is going down the drain, you know, you globally, like there are wars and this and that, and then you have climate change. And so it's all like it's it's it's like it just pushes you into this corner of feeling that everything is gloom and doom. So then if you add on even more stories about suffering and all that, it might just push the audience and that I don't I would even open this article because the headline itself is creating anxiety for me. But if it's up, like you know, like Jessica was saying, if it is about the solution, if it's about hope, while talking about the current situation. So you're informing the audience regarding what the issue is and why it needs to be addressed, but you're also leaving the audience with a thought, with a question of better, you know, solutions and hope and expectations.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Yeah, I always just have the concern that sometimes people read things and then if they think that it's hopeful, that they feel like their job is done and they don't have to, but maybe I'm just a cynic and a critic um at heart. Uh it's a difficult line to walk. Um Shishabdi, why don't you read us your your quote next?

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

Yeah, so I had saved, I'll just yeah, so I had saved uh John Burger's uh quote from the why look at animals. Most animals disappear from the media in one of two ways. They are either sentimentalized or made invisible. So this kind of I always keep thinking about this when when I'm in spaces where I have to document what's happening because uh it doesn't need to be either or it is what it is, you know, at the end of the day. And uh talking about, you know, the beauty of nature doesn't take away, doesn't erase the fact that we are in a crisis that we have created.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

So and I think there's something to be said about taking that beauty seriously. Somehow we've equated beauty with sentimentality, like technology, but also there's something for taking animals and their space and nature and the ways in which things there is something to be said for being serious about these matters and taking their experiences and the ways in which they are interconnecting with a whole host of different crises or events like a bonfire, etc. It's um all the the questions you raised earlier about conservation and lack of land. I think there is something, I think it's respecting the beauty and the potential of that beauty to take it seriously. I think to do anything other than take it seriously is perhaps to sentimentalize it is perhaps to do it a disservice. Um yeah.

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

I mean, it's all great to romanticize it and be all like, oh, Mother Nature and all, but that shouldn't move you away from the brown reality.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

All right, Jann, then we're with you.

Jan Dutkiewicz :

Well, so I this isn't, you know, I'm not one for aphorism, so this isn't a full quote, but I think it's a concept that not enough people talk about. And it's from the anthropologist Noël Lee VII, who's a French anthropologist who wrote uh the book Animal to Edible, and is uh, you know, is importantly sort of uh a s a very senior voice in the animal space, but not a not a vegan or an animal person. But anyway, she writes that meat is a quote-unquote political commodity in that it involves a social rather than an individual decision about uh who can be killed, and so meat in this way involves the entire polis or the entire political community. And I think that this gets at the heart of at least in the food space, the animal question, right? Like we're so used to talking about this thing in terms of individual proclivities, individual tastes, individual ethical positions. But look, ultimately, you know, factory farming exists because it's legal, and it's legal because people acquiesce to it as citizens and as consumers, which on the one hand leads us to the grim conclusion that people are that most people are complicit in the single most violent industry in human history, directly, personally, uh but also that it can be otherwise, that different political realities are possible, right? But it's also I think very clear about the fact that these are ultimately, you know, political issues, not individual, not just individual ethical issues, but societal issues that affect us all, right? Like the factory farm is a political decision, the mink farm is a political decision, right? The legality of trophy hunting is a political decision. And I think that that's important to keep to keep in mind.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

And not only political in the uh I guess like legal sense in terms of the laws, but also like you said, there the the the polis, the idea of what our society is or is not, right? The the idea of how we function, who is considered, I guess, a subject in the law, um, as well as a subject in in our environments and and whose interests are taken into account or not into account. Um, yeah, I mean that that's all political. Whose interests are reported on or not reported on is also political, right?

Jan Dutkiewicz :

Exactly, exactly. And also what what kind of a world do we want? Do we want to build and live in and work towards and who matters, right? Who matters or not in that world.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

I can't think of a better place to leave this uh this conversation than saying who matters in this world, because I think that cuts to the heart, I think, of what a lot of media is often asking. Um, and if not asking, should be asking. Uh so before we leave, thank you uh all three of you for for your time today. Um, if you want to give a quick goodbye and let us know what you're currently working on. And if people are interested in learning more about your work, where they can uh find you.

Jessica Scott-Reid :

Um yeah, I'm currently working um over at Sentient, like I said, debunking all of the pervasive myths around the food system and the use of animals uh and as well as climate change. So follow me over there. And if you have any interest in Canadian media, I write for the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star and the Winnipeg Free Press and anyone else who will let me up here in Canada.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

And again, how about you? What you're currently working on?

Jan Dutkiewicz :

Yeah, so I have a website. It's just jankevich.com. I'm not gonna spell it out, but I'm sure you can find it in the show notes. I just finished a book uh co-written with Gabriel Rosenberg. It's called Feed the People. It'll be out from basic books uh early 2026. And I'm finishing up an academic monograph about uh the politics of violence in the American meat industry, and that's called an industry like any other.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Amazing. I look forward to reading both of those. Shatabdeen, how about you?

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

Um, just finishing an edit on a story regarding indigenous knowledge and climate change, uh, like their understanding of it. So it's it's a story for an NGO that we're working with the indigenous communities down south. Um, and yeah, and along with that, just doing prep for a story around uh, again, like farmed animals and heat stress and all that. So that's that's what's happening currently. And I don't have a website till yet, but I'm on Instagram. That's that's where I just put out some of my work. So yeah, you can find me on Instagram.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Fantastic. I'll make sure to put links to everything in the show notes. Uh, thank you, thank you so much, all three of you four for joining me today. It's been a great conversation.

Jessica Scott-Reid :

Thank you.

Shatabdi Chakrabarti :

Thank you so much.

Claudia Hirtenfelder:

Thank you so much to Shrutabdi, Jessica, and Ian for being incredible guests and giving so freely and willingly of their thoughts and ideas and time. Thank you also to Animals in Philosophy and Politics and Law and Ethics, Apple, for sponsoring this podcast, and to the Pollination Project School of Modern Language for Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, as well as the School of Literature, Media and Communication at Georgia Tech University, for sponsoring this season. The bad music was composed by Gordon Clark and the logo designed by Jeremy Junn. This episode was produced, hosted, and edited by myself. This is the Animal Turn, with me by Claudia Hittenfelder.

Siobhan O'Sullivan:

For more great IRL podcasts, visit irallpod.com. That's I R O A R P O D.com.

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Claudia Hirtenfelder

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Jan Dutkiewicz

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Jessica Scott-Reid

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Shatabdi Chakrabarti

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