Four Corners (1961)
TV Show
First aired
"A Bloody Business," May 30, 2011
Sarah Ferguson's report showed Australian cattle being beaten, whipped and kicked before slaughter in Indonesian abattoirs, footage that most viewers had never imagined was part of the live export trade.
Within days the government suspended exports to the abattoirs shown, and soon afterward halted the trade to Indonesia altogether, before reopening it under new welfare rules. Few episodes anywhere moved policy so fast. It is a hard watch for anyone squeamish, but it shows how a program can make a distant supply chain impossible to ignore, and why industry groups called the cruelty indefensible on the record.
More about Four Corners