“Ag-gag” Laws and The Jungle

“Ag-gag” laws threaten journalists’ reliance on whistleblowers 

A recent spate of nationwide legislative measures designed to curb undercover recording at farms and other agricultural facilities may potentially restrict reporters’ ability to gather and publish important information about the food industry.

Some of the measures would directly prohibit journalists from photographing or recording farm animals and other items and activities involved in food production in a manner not likely to pass constitutional scrutiny.

Others, however, seek to cut off the dissemination of this information at its source, by criminalizing the actions of whistleblowers. (more)

Dot Connections:
The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by American journalist, socialist, politician, and muckracker Upton Sinclair (1878-1968). The novel was first published in serial form in 1905... It was based on undercover work done in 1904: Sinclair spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards at the behest of the magazine's publishers.

Public pressure led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which established the Bureau of Chemistry that would become the Food and Drug Administration in 1930.