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Ashley Grinstead

Dr. Jennifer Johnson

Writing 1

2222 April April 2019

The Beef About Beef in Through Different Genres

The beloved cheeseburger. A juicy, thick steak. Southern barbeque. These are typical

American meals that normally don’t raise questions to the consumer. Some of these are meals are

eaten by Americans more than thrice a week. But low and beholdas not many people know, these

meals are actually strainingstraining the Earth and are one of the leading causes of climate

change. The mini documentary “Beef and Climate Change, How Are They Related?” starring

Nick Paton Walsh from CNN, gives a brief overview of the overall challenges this topic holds in

a short video loaded with facts and footage. The narrative article “Have We Hit ‘Peak Beef’?”

written by Tim Lewis, gives insight on the controversies of this topic by telling a story while

delivering facts at the same time. These two genres are similar yet so different in the way they

portray how beef is linked to climate change by by how theyusing different appeals to the

audience as well as in their use of rhetoric.

Mini documentaries are made for people who don’t really have the time to watch actual

documentaries but still want to be educated about a subject. The CNN mini documentary is about

seven and a half minutes long and answers the question (which is also the title of the video),

“Beef and Climate Change, How Are They Related?” From just looking at the title, one can

easily identify the main idea of the entire video and see if they are interested in watching it or

not. Unlike documentary titles, the title of the mini documentary isn’t some ominous word or

phrase that makes you question the content because it just gets straight to the point. For
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reference, “Blackfish” and “Cowspiracy” are titles of documentaries that are about the

mistreatment of Sea World animals and the relation beef has to climate change, respectively. The

titles do not directly inform the audience of the content of the documentary, they are just words

to grab the audience’s attention so that the audience could watch the documentary to learn about

what those words mean. From just looking at the mini documentary title, one can easily identify

the main idea of the entire video and seedecide if they are interested in watching it or not.

In continuationFurthermore, mini documentaries are limited to the amount of content

that’s allowedthat they can address inside the video. They Mini documentaries normally consist

of an overview of the topic or problem and support it the topic with statistics and facts. There is

sometimes sometimes bias , depending on who produced the video as well as the news source.

Some people are interviewed, but they are mainly featured to help prove a point. Because they’re

mini documentaries are supposed to be short and informative, they are unable to elaborate

formdevelop characters about the people they interview. For example, Nick Paton Walsh

interviews Raymond Butler, the owner of one of the cattle farms, for CNN’s video and asks him

what his opinion is on global warming. Butler states that he “doesn’t believe in it [and that]

…there has to be a drastic change in the weather” for him to change his mind (CNN). According

to Ad Fontes Media’s news bias, CNN gives fair interpretations of the news and leans a little to

the left. With this in consideration, CNN ultimately specifically added that the interview in their

mini documentary there to show prove that ignorance is also a main contributorkey component

toof climate change.

Walsh also interviewed people at a barbeque festival in Texas where there werethat had

excessive amounts of different kinds of meat: ribs, steak, sausage links, and more. He asked

them how they felt about the relation of beef has to climate change, and the majority ofmost of
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the people didn’t want to acknowledge the connection and think about the impacts because they

wanted to enjoy the festival. Again, CNN added this segment to indirectly answer a question

Walsh asked at the beginning of the video, which was “How does the food you love to eat affect

our struggle to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius?” (CNN). CNN didn’t give any

background information about the people they interviewed to avoid the use of pathos since they

ultimately wanted to focus on the ethos of the topiclogos of their argument. The use of only ethos

is a disadvantage of mini documentaries since the video is just spitting straight facts to the

viewer--the audience can’t empathize with the topic without the use of pathos.Mini

documentaries do use pathos to address the viewer through direct questions that are presented

throughout the video. This strategy tries to make people think about their own lives and how

climate change directly affects them.

On the other hand, narrative articles are for people who have a lot of time and want a

more detailed perspective of a subject. The article from The Guardian, “Have We Hit ‘Peak

Beef’?” by Tim Lewis, describes the connection beef has with climate change at a much greater

length than what a mini documentary provides. There is a definite theme and main idea running

through the story, putting the question “Is there a way for beef to be ethical?” into the reader’s

mind to challenge their notions.

Narrative articles go into detail about a topic by starting off with a main story and

referencing it throughout the article. For example, Lewis starts off by telling the story of the

owner origins of Wild Beef, a company that sells “beyond organic” beef. Throughout the rest of

the article, he brings in facts and situations where beef and climate change are controversial,

often referencing back to the story about Wild Beef. Thate story about Wild Beef is used as to

provide a structure to the article so that the reader isn’t just blown away by facts.
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Lewis also brings in stories that expose different point of views about beef and climate

change. For instance, in one part of the article, Lewis starts off with facts about how beef

contributes to climate change by addressing how “cattle are responsible for an unholy proportion

of agriculture’s greenhouse gases.” He then challenges this statement by bringing in the fact that

the production of avocados hurts the Earth as much as red meat does. Lewis proposes a question

asking the reader “how…can having a small portion of pasture-fed beef…be worse than eating

an avocado, imported from Mexico, picked by low-paid, immigrant workers on land linked to

illegal deforestation?” This rebuttal allows for the carnivorous and vegan readers to be exposed

to the problems both types of categories bring to the Earth. The specific controversy about

avocados is more directed toward the vegan readers as it challenges their beliefs of what is

considered sustainable and ecofriendly and what is not.

One significant thing about the narrative article is that Lewis never brings in his own

opinion. His language leaves his piece up for suggestion to the reader and allows for the reader to

formulate their own opinion about the topic. Unlike the CNN video, where Walsh is relaying

facts in a tone that makes the reader feel guilty about their consumption, the strategy Lewis uses

allows for the audience to choose if they want to make a change or not by offering different

perspectives. Mini documentaries often take a clear side to the problemof an issue, depending on

the news source and producer. The limit a narrative article has is dependent on the audience’s the

audience’s time since narrative articles are long reads, while the limit for mini documentaries is

the bias itself. limit the amount of pathos that is

Works Cited

“The Chart, Version 3.0: What, Exactly, Are We Reading?” Ad Fontes Media, 29 Aug. 2018,
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www.adfontesmedia.com/the-chart-version-3-0-what-exactly-are-we-reading/.

Lewis, Tim. “Have We Hit 'Peak Beef'?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 16 Mar.

2019, www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/16/peak-beef-ethical-food-climate-

change.

Walsh, Nick Paton. “Beef and Climate Change, How Are They Related? - CNN Video.” CNN,

Cable News Network, 9 Dec. 2018, www.cnn.com/videos/health/2018/12/08/beef-- Formatted: Line spacing: Double
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