Ted Genoways first became interested in the meatpacking industry through stories his grandfather told him about working in the Omaha stockyards.
His interest as a child turned into an obsession. He’s now spent more than a decade and a half reporting on the food industry – including investigating labor exploitation inside meatpacking plants. He’s the author of six books, including “The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food,” and “This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm.” His current book project, “Kill Floor: Big Meat and the Future of America,” explores the rise of white nationalism in meatpacking towns and its influence on labor demographic changes in these communities.
Genoways is a fellow with the Watchdog Writers Group, a nonprofit fellowship program at the Missouri School of Journalism. He recently gave a workshop to journalism students on how to cover vulnerable sources at a moment when many of his sources are at risk of losing their jobs or being deported.
Find a balance between protecting sources and sharing their stories
Genoways shared a story he wrote for Mother Jones in 2011 on a neurological disorder occurring in workers at Hormel Foods’ flagship meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota.
The plant inserted a high-pressure air nozzle into the skulls of hogs to liquify their brains, making them easier to harvest.
“As it turned out, what they were actually doing was applying enough pressure that the brain matter was also aerosolizing, and everyone in the immediate area was inhaling pig brain matter that was causing this neurological disorder among the workers,” Genoways said.
Genoways interviewed workers who had been exposed. It wasn’t easy, as most of the workers were living in the U.S. illegally.
“This was really my first encounter of working with a large group of vulnerable workers in this way,” Genoways said.
He worked with sources to decide what details were needed to show the harm done to them without exposing their identities. “There were some who were willing to talk, but not be photographed in any way,” Genoways said. “There were some who were willing to be photographed, but asked for their identities to be mostly protected, so that their faces were covered, or we were only seeing their hands.”
Genoways told students that journalists must work directly with their sources to figure out what they’re comfortable with. “Over the years, I have become maybe more protective of my subjects than they are of themselves,” Genoways said.
He added that he is always open with his sources and discusses the risk they are taking. Many of his sources, he said, prefer to speak out, even with the risk.
“I just feel like as journalists, if that is what someone wants to do, if that’s the choice that they make with all the information in front of them, that, you know, we honor that decision, and then also try to make sure, if they’re taking that risk, that the story is a good one, and that it’s kind of doing as much as it possibly can,” Genoways said.
Finding sources
Genoways said legal records are a good place to find sources. Large food companies are frequently sued, providing a significant paper trail. In 2025, Genoways wrote an article for High Country News about a 2006 Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on a meatpacking plant in Colorado. He worked with Bryan Chou, who earned a master’s degree in 2025 from the Missouri School of Journalism and worked as a student researcher at WWG while earning his degree. Chou examined two decades of discrimination case documents to find potential sources. Working with Genoways, Chou found photos and names of the workers’ families in local news coverage of the 2006 ICE raid and contacted them via social media.
Newspapers.com, an online database of digitized newspapers, is a tool Genoways uses to understand the context of a community. He said Facebook groups are also helpful as they can serve as a community message board.
When Genoways first approaches vulnerable workers, he shares his previous reporting on the food industry. But even if a journalist hasn’t reported on a specific topic before, Genoways said being curious helps.
“It is remarkable how much trust you gain just by showing up and being interested in the story, no matter what,” Genoways said.
While interviewing sources about sensitive topics, Genoways stays transparent about the fact-checking process, during which researchers at publications often call sources directly to verify information. Genoways hopes to prevent sources from reliving traumatic experiences by recording interviews; this reduces the need for sources to tell the same story again to a complete stranger.
Keep an open mind
Jamie Lu, a first-year journalism student, asked Genoways to elaborate on the importance of approaching a story with an open mind. A journalist must be comfortable with not knowing everything and acknowledge that everyone they talk to may know a lot more, Genoways said.
“With any kind of investigative work and with any kind of journalism at all, if you can write the story from your desk before you ever go in the field, you probably don’t have the depth of understanding that the story really calls for,” he added. “What you want is the thing that surprises you, that surprises the reader, the thing that you can only learn by going.”
Lu, a reporter for the investigative and data section of The Maneater, the University of Missouri’s student newspaper, said the talk helped her understand the need to stay open to new ideas.
“My favorite part about it was how he talked about how as an investigative reporter it’s important that whenever we go into the field to cover these stories, we should keep an open mind and let the reporting and let the story speak for itself rather than a specific narrative, because oftentimes it can lead to us missing the story that’s actually there,” Lu said.
