The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "meat processing" ...
-
Agriprocessors and Beyond: Inside the Kosher Meat Industry
This series of articles looked inside the kosher meat industry, a quietly guarded world worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The reporting began two years ago when the Forward's Nathaniel Popper wrote about the working conditions at the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse, Agriprocessors, in Postville, Iowa, setting off a wide-ranging debate in Jewish community. The paper has continued to follow the problems at Agriprocessors and reported early in 2008 on the debate withing the kosher industry about a widely used but apparently cruel method of kosher slaughter known as shackled and hoist. Then, in the middle of the year, federal agents, citing the Forward's reporting raided the Agriprocessors' plant in Iowa. Since the raid, the Forward has followed each legal development, but has also reported on elements of the story that were being overlooked. The first such article detailed the way in which Agriprocessors had handled immigrants and unions at its Brooklyn warehouse-sparking a case that went to the Supreme Court. The next set of articles investigated the working conditions in the rest of the kosher eat industry, with particular attention paid to the labor battles at Agriprocessors' biggest competitor, Alle Processing, which had been completely ignored. The article and chart on industry-wide conditions were the first effort to systematically set down the relative size and production of the major players in the kosher meat industry. The Forward also wrote a lengthy report on the immigrant workers from Agriprocessors who had been released from prison and ordered to testify in federal court against their supervisors, but were given no means to support themselves before the hearing date. After Agriprocessors declared bankruptcy, the Forward reported on the unnoticed consequences for the town and its inhabitants, from the lowly turkeys to the local bankers.
Tags: meat processing; kosher meat; agriculture; Agriprocessors; meatpacking; immigrant workers
-
"Downer Cow Controversy"
This investigation began by raising questions about the lack of federal inspection outside a slaughterhouse and the treatment of cows. Particularly it raised questions about health risks involving "downer" cows -- weak, sick or crippled dairy cows processed into beef for the kitchen table. The state's beef and dairy commissions, state agencies funded by fees attached to beef and dairy products, criticized the station's reports. The television station was tried in abstentia by the Washington News Council and found to have been unfair to the beef industry. The station earlier had refused to participate in the arbitration, saying its reports were accurate and that the council itself is partial. On Dec. 23, the first U.S. case of mad cow was announced. The animal was a downer cow processed at the same slaughterhouse that was the subject of the station's initial investigation.
Tags: beef; cattle; mad cow; downer cows; USDA; dairy; E. coli; food safety; meat-packing plants; slaughterhouse
-
Opportunity of Exploitation?
These stories deal with how a company, Maxi Staff Inc., used promises of good pay, great housing and the chance to escape poverty and high unemployment to recruit laborers for Puerto Rico to work in U.S. meat processing plants. The stories revealed how, once they were in the United States, the laborers' dreams turned to dust and they found themselves in an unfavorable economic situation. The company charged recruits for the recruits' flights to the U.S. They were put in substandard and unsanitary housing. Workers made less money than they had originally been told, often making less than $100 for a 40-hour week. Recruits who fell ill or got injured on the job were fired and evicted from their housing with 48 hours notice.
Tags: Maxi Staff Inc.; poverty; unemployment; Puerto Rican Laborers; U.S. meat processing plants; U.S. Department of Labor; Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration; Puerto Rico Department of Labor and Human Resources; Ronell Industries; Empire Kosher; Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry; Catholic Social Services; Council of Spanish Speaking Organizations; Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church; U.S. Department of Labor's Employment Standards Administration Wage and Hour Division; OSHA; Puerto Rican recruits; Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition
-
Downer Cows
A KIRO-TV report on how sick, dying and injured dairy cattle are being processed for hamburger, with little or no oversight by federal meat inspectors.
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; meat; federal meat inspectors; beef; cattle; dairy cattle; slaughterhouses; food safety
-
Meat Processing plants fail tests, yet stay open
A Des Moines Register investigation revealed that "meat and poultry processing plants that fail to meet food-safety standards have continued operating for months after problems were detected, shipping products to consumers while additional testing was done."
Tags: health meat processing inspection business Department of Agriculture salmonella listeria USDA
-
A Killer In Our Food
The Detroit Free Press, in an eight-month long investigation, looks into a deadly disease outbreak that started from negligent behavior at a Michigan meat-packing plant. The outbreak of listeria killed at least 21 people and caused a multi-million dollar recall. The reporters used FOIA requests, interviewed sources across the country, and reviewed more than 10,000 pages of documents. The Free Press used a federal database of citations at U.S. meat plants, court and company records, e-mail traffic between federal and state health officers and state and county health records to complete this investigation. The investigation found that this meat-packing plant was similar to many plants across the nation.
Tags: CAR food; safety; meat; Bil Mar Foods; health; disease; Sara Lee recall processed meat USDA Department of Agriculture FSIS Food Safety and Inspection Service FDA Food and Drug Administration
-
1992 IRE TV Award Winners and Finalists Tape
The 1992 IRE TV Award Winners and Finalists Tape is a compilation of 5 investigative stories. 1.) "Food Lion," Prime Time Live, ABC News researches the Food Lion grocery store chain and finds that employees of the store are put under pressure to meet profit quotas, which caused them to put out spoiled food with new expiration dates. Including Food Lion fighting back and ABC apologizing for confusion. See # 9392. 2.) "To Prove Them Innocent," ABC News 20/20 (New York) reports on three men who were convicted of rape in a small town in Pennsylvania, where the local people fought for three years to gain their release and prove their innocence. An investigation finds that on the night in question the men were 50 miles from where the rape occurred, and could not have committed the crime. See # 9398. 3.) "Abuse For Sale," WCCO, Minneapolis documents the explosion of the home-made pornography industry, made possible by the increase in popularity of home video cameras and VCRs. An investigation finds that home-made child pornography is sold through national distributors and at adult video stores across the country. See # 9068. 4.) "Cops and Robbers," WMAQ, Chicago finds that the Chicago Police Department violates its own rules by hiring people with criminal records. Of those officers with criminal records, the ones with battery convictions are also the officers most criticized for police brutality. See # 9221. 5.) "Carol Mosely Braun," WMAQ, Chicago breaks the case of Carol Mosely Braun and the mishandling of a large sum of money given to her mother. Braun allegedly attempted to hide the money so that her mother's Medicaid care would not be cut. See # 9222.
Tags: TAPE; meat processing; crime; cop; police; Medicare; health care.
-
Hog-Tied
The Progressive investigates meat-packing plants, specifically the pork assembly line, and migrant workers roles within these plants. The Progressive tells of the injuries sustained and the unsafe conditions in these assembly lines.
Tags: Cook; meat processing; pork assembly lines
-
On The Line at IBP.
A worker's hand gets cut off once every five years at IBP meat processing plant. Management says that's not a problem. The company's cost-control strategy...a system that relies on the plant's easily intimidated, largely immigrant, replenishable work force its complaisant union and business-friendly laws. Zimmerman showed up while she was still waiting to have surgery. He got her to sign the waiver, with her left hand (she is right-handed), while she was heavily drugged. She has no memory of signing it.
Tags: unsafe working conditions; meat processing plant; law suit
-
Pioneer packing
WBNS exposes an Ohio pork processing plant that followed unsanitary practices in preparing meat. Plant managers carried out a systematic harassment of federal meat inspectors in hopes of getting them to overlook violations.