I appreciate your responses.

To the second point, I fully agree that most people would not regard it as one of the most important stories. Nevertheless, I think the scale of the problem speaks for itself: so far this year, over 6 billion animals have been killed for food in the US alone. There is an emerging scientific consensus that many animals, including the kinds most frequently farmed, fished, or hunted, are sentient and have the capacity to suffer. And they do suffer; the practices that take place, particularly but not exclusively on industrial farms, are exempted from animal cruelty laws. Just food for thought for future coverage.