The Media's View of Vegetarianism

I was watching America's Next Great Restaurant and an Indian man pitched an idea for a possibly vegetarian restaurant. The investors basically said they couldn't invest in a restaurant that would only appeal to 15% of the population. He had to agree to serve meat to move forward. Presumably he could still have vegetarian dishes, just meat ones would have to be there as well. This, in a nutshell, is how vegetarianism is viewed in media. It is okay, as long as it is NOT the only option. I believe the issue goes deeper than that though. The media never seems to be able to say that eating meat is not okay. Let me explain with two examples. Recently Oprah had a show on veganism. Kathy Freston, author of Veganist, was one of the guests. She got to explaining how an animal suffering for her meal did not sit right with her. Oprah was quick to jump on her that the animals didn't suffer because her show got to tape one slaughterhouse in which the cows appeared to die painlessly. This was the only slaughterhouse out of many that consented and I am quite certain they cleaned up their act before any camera crew entered the premises. Michael Pollan also pointed out that there is nothing wrong with eating meat as long as the animals get to be on "happy" farms. My other example is the movie Food, Inc. It was a popular documentary which showed some of the cruelty involved in today's animal husbandry, particularly the horrible living conditions of chickens raised for meat. The segment about animals, however, concluded with a look into Polyface farms. A farm where animals get to live on the land until they are killed or murdered (if I want to be really pushy) for their meat. The implicit philosophy in both examples and I believe in American media in general, is that factory farming where animals suffer is bad, but for God's sake don't stop eating meat. There is nothing wrong with it! I wonder if television and movies which did espouse vegetarianism, no matter what, could never make it to the general public because of the huge pockets of the meat and dairy industries. I suspect so.