Muck Muckraking

Digital video of the treatment of downer cows, which was shot by The Humane Society of the United States, has spurred the largest beef recall in history that targets the #2 supplier of beef to the school lunch program, after the clips propagated across the web. As an example of witness journalism, the extremely graphic footage taken by an HSUS investigator, which shows live cows being dragged by chains or abused by forklifts, seems to have been enabled by smaller digital video recording devices obviously escaped notice by his coworkers. Although less likely to use online video as a rhetorical tool than PETA, which even has Martha Stewart aboard, the Humane Society is clearly trying to use new mobile technologies to raise the profile of animal rights issues.