In exposing cruelty in greyhound racing, did the ABC need to promote activists' shock tactics?
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Version 0 of 1. On Monday, Four Corners aired the shocking results of an investigation by Animals Australia into the sport of greyhound racing. The episode, Making a Killing, features disturbing footage of a practice called live baiting, in which owners train their dogs by having them chase and maul small animals like rabbits, possums and piglets. It’s an animal cruelty scandal of grand proportions. Live baiting is illegal in every state and territory in Australia, and 22 people alleged to have participated have been suspended by the greyhound racing industry’s regulator. Viewers were fierce in their condemnation. This isn’t the first time Four Corners has reported on animal cruelty. In 2011, their episode about live cattle export, A Bloody Business, showed similarly gruesome footage of Australian cows being slaughtered in Indonesian abattoirs. As with Monday’s exposure of the greyhound racing industry, that investigation built on work by Animals Australia. The two episodes share a similar format. The broadcast was built on footage of cattle being slaughtered in a way viewers would identify as inhumane. Those images – taken to be wrong in and of themselves – sparked such an intense outcry that the government suspended live exports for six months. Last year, several cattle farming operations mounted a class action case against the Commonwealth over the validity of the ban. As consumers in highly developed Western countries, we aren’t often confronted with graphic images of animals suffering, like those shown in Four Corners’ reports. Our relationship with “non-pet” animals is often quite abstract – we buy milk, meat and eggs from the supermarket, or put bets down on dogs and horses before they thunder around the track. How animal products are produced – racing included – is totally divorced from the way we consume them; you don’t see dogs being bred and trained before you take a punt at the TAB, for instance. Thus, unsanitised depictions of abuse have become a valuable resource for animal rights activists. The footage in Four Corners’ greyhound report was provided by Animal Liberation Queensland, whose website header features a still from the same reel. As an activist tactic, stomach-turning images seem to work as you’d expect. The public, and especially those higher up the socioeconomic ladder, are easily offended by acts of killing and violence that they have priced themselves out of having to witness. There’s a clamour for something, anything to be done; politicians are forced to respond, consumer campaigns are born and often we all forget about it a few weeks later. This sort of gruesome footage rarely receives a platform as large as Four Corners. It’s worth asking why that is. While Animals Australia is a moderate organisation that intentionally distances itself from more extreme animal rights groups, Animal Liberation Queensland outlines its vision as: A world where all nonhuman animals live free from abuse, exploitation, and suffering. Speciesist attitudes are rejected by society and veganism is accepted as the norm. Whether you accept or reject this vision isn’t really the point: Animal Liberation Queensland has a clear agenda, and its investigations are conducted in the service of that agenda. Animal Liberation Queensland is currently running a campaign against greyhound racing. Their position on the issue is: ALQ is opposed to the use of greyhounds in racing because of significant animal welfare issues. [...] ALQ supports a ban on greyhound racing in Australia. Their page about the Four Corners report is phrased as though the ABC is merely airing the results of ALQ’s own investigation: On Monday night ABC Four Corners will air the results of ground-breaking investigations conducted by Animal Liberation Queensland and Animals Australia, into the greyhound racing industry. ALQ aren’t journalists; their foremost concern is the success of their own campaigns. Animals Australia has its own petition against live baiting. This should immediately raise questions: Did ALQ offer up their footage to Four Corners with no conditions? How were they involved in the production process? After the outrage that followed the cattle export broadcasts, perhaps the ABC should have foreshadowed these questions, but the broadcast on Monday didn’t address the group’s relationship with the ABC. I’ve contacted Four Corners for a response. Most viewers had strong and entirely appropriate reactions to the program’s depiction of animal abuse – now the subject of two investigations by the Victorian government. But it’s difficult to assess the value of reporting like this outside a more comprehensive discussion of our relationship with animals and the industries that use them. For instance, Four Corners’ coverage of live exports didn’t ultimately halt exports to Indonesia, but during the freeze on trading the Department of Agriculture’s research body estimated around 375,000 head of cattle were stranded. One Coalition senator claimed that would constitute an animal welfare disaster in and of itself. Was that assertion ever tested rigorously in the public sphere, as the potential outcome of policy drawn up on the hop? Never mind: many in the animal welfare movement argue that it’s not possible for live export to be conducted humanely, full stop. Back to Monday’s report, Greyhound authorities have issued statements condemning live baiting, and listing the measures they will use to prevent it. It’s likely that they will end up accepting more regulation, but the practice is already illegal: how much more can be done to prevent the status quo from reasserting itself? Already the authorities are painting the scandal as a stain on the industry, rather than a systemic problem, with the CEO of Greyhound Racing Victoria issuing an internal memo encouraging people to, “Be angry at those within the sport that are doing the wrong thing and undermining the values for which we stand.” If the ABC is going to work with groups like Animal Liberation Queensland, they have a duty to frame their reports in a more nuanced way than: “Torturing piglets, yes or no?” Obviously the practice is reprehensible; that’s why activists use it to provoke short-term outrage and advance their political goals. Where else should the ethical discussion go? Despite mentioning that many dogs suffer and die each year even when the sport is conducted within the rules, there were no questions raised about whether greyhound racing should be legal in the first place, or if it’s acceptable to harm animals in the service of entertainment. Grisly coverage of live baiting doesn’t mesh well with reasonable debate, but isn’t starting those conversations squarely within Four Corners’ remit? What constitutes animal cruelty, and how we should treat animals in general, is a highly contested issue that doesn’t have many easy solutions. Live baiting is one of few animal ethics questions that has a clear-cut answer: yes, it’s wrong; yes, it should be illegal; and yes, anyone still doing it should be exposed and punished. We don’t really need to watch 45 minutes of Animal Liberation footage on the national broadcaster to know this. Does that serve the ABC’s viewers, the public debate, or the goals of activists? Some of that time could have been better spent on discussion oriented toward a more long-term vision of animal welfare in Australia. Investigative journalism is meant to raise challenging questions, and alarm bells should ring when its goals and techniques overlap so neatly with activist campaigns intended to shock and convert. |