'21 Favorite: Oprah's Beef Beef (1996)

This Day in Esoteric Political History

This Thanksgiving week, we’re running some favorite episodes from the year that you may have missed. We’ll be back the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

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This episode originally aired on April 15th. On this day in 1996, Oprah Winfrey hosted a segment on her show about “Mad Cow Disease” and proclaimed that she would no longer eat beef. That same day, cattle futures plummeted, and she was soon sued by the cattle industry.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the power of Oprah, the “veggie libel laws” and how she turned the trial into both television and a free speech crusade.

Find a transcript of this episode at: https://tinyurl.com/esoterichistory

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Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Julie Shapiro, Executive Producer at Radiotopia