WALL STREET JOURNAL - THE EVENING WRAP

Prodding

By ROBIN MORONEY

The age of YouTube had another defining moment when an amateur video was enough to dramatically reverse the congressional testimony of Westland/Hallmark Meat President Steve Mendell.

In remarks submitted to lawmakers, Mr. Mendell had denied that beef from a Southern California slaughterhouse, the source of the largest beef recall in U.S. history, was unsafe. The written testimony followed the usual public-relations script of emphasizing the good news about a company and providing alternative explanations for the bad news. He declared that a video -- shot by Humane Society members working undercover at the plant -- showed ill cows that were headed for euthanasia, not eventual human consumption, albeit with the prodding of a forklift. He was then shown the video and its images of cows being shocked and dragged by chains to a slaughter site. Mr. Mendell had his head in his hands with his written testimony apparently in ruins. Prompted by the panel's chairman, Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.), Mr. Mendell acknowledged that the video did indeed show so-called downer cows entering the U.S. food suppply. "Has your company ever illegally slaughtered, processed, or sold a downer cow?" Mr. Stupak asked. "I didn't think we had sir," Mr. Mendell said.

When asked why he hadn't, Mr. Mendell showed on what side of the generation gap he stood. He blamed the Agriculture Department for not allowing him to see some of the footage. That might have been a valid excuse only a few years ago. Demands from wounded parties that the full video be released have been mainstays of similar controversies. In the 1990s, supermarket Food Lion and ABC fought for a long time over showing what footage ABC had cut out of a report that accused Food Lion of serving unfresh meat. But times have changed. Had Mr. Mendell the Web savvy of a 10-year-old, he would have known that the entire video was available on the Humane Society's Web site a long time ago and widely viewed via YouTube. The latest tools of the digital age haven't just given corporations interesting opportunities to spread marketing messages. It has also given the general public the surveillance tools that used to be the sole property of the government and television journalists, along with the ability to broadcast the results. Food safety is one issue facing the meat industry, as evidenced by Mr. Mendell's excruciating time on Capitol Hill today and other meat recalls. But the cost of food is certainly another. Reflecting industrywide problems, Pilgrim's Pride, the world's largest chicken processor, today said it will cut 1,100 jobs, blaming corn-based ethanol production for an intolerable leap in the price of feed.

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