Voices of the Movement: Featuring Jane Velez-Mitchell from UnchainedTV

Jane Velez-Mitchell on Journalism, Justice, and the Future of Vegan Media

Before UnchainedTV became the only free, nonprofit streaming network for the vegan and animal rights movement, it began with one woman – standing outside a Brooklyn circus in nine-degree weather with a shaky GoPro and a stubborn belief that someone needed to pay attention.

Jane Velez-Mitchell’s career in mainstream journalism spanned more than three decades. From her early days as a reporter in Fort Myers to anchoring major market news at WCBS in New York and KCAL in Los Angeles, she brought stories into living rooms across the country. But even as her visibility grew, so did her discomfort with the stories that weren’t being told – especially about animals.

“I started refusing to do the rodeo kicker stories,” Jane recalled. “I was becoming a pain in the neck at work. I took all the glue traps out. I even had a tug of war with another anchor over lobsters that were delivered to her.”

Her journey toward animal rights began, like so many, with a single moment that hit her hard.

“I was interviewing Howard Lyman – the cattle rancher who went on Oprah and revealed the horrors of the industry. Afterward, he and his publicist came up to me and said, ‘Do you eat dairy?’ I kind of hung my head and said yes. And they went like this – ‘Liquid meat.’ Right in my face. That was the second I went vegan.”

From that point on, Jane found herself seeing the world through a different lens. And that vision soon became UnchainedTV.

“We happened to walk by a hardware store with chains hanging in front. I said, ‘I’m unchained.’ My friend said, ‘Unchained!’ And I just kind of knocked all the chains around.”

Though she’s since dropped the “Jane Unchained” branding, the symbolism stuck. UnchainedTV emerged as a natural extension of her values and skills – a media outlet unshackled from corporate sponsorship and advertiser bias, free to report on what others ignore.

“Now I could go to protests. I could cover what mattered. And we started aggregating content from all the big groups – PETA, Mercy For Animals, Animal Outlook. We were documenting the vegan movement in real time.”

Part 2: From Lunch Break Live to New Day New Chef

As UnchainedTV began finding its voice, Jane Velez-Mitchell found herself in a unique moment of opportunity. Facebook Live had just launched, and she decided to test it – on a whim – during a backyard vegan barbecue.

“I was like, let’s just see if my phone works for going live out here. And suddenly I was getting all these comments. ‘What are you eating?’ ‘Who’s that?’ I thought – wow, we have to eat lunch every day. Let’s turn this into something.”

That spontaneous stream turned into LunchBreak LIVE, a daily vegan cooking show that ran for nearly four years. Jane and her team streamed new episodes every single weekday, featuring chefs, activists, and home cooks – all showcasing the diversity and joy of plant-based food.

“Someone once told me, ‘You figured out a very clever way to have great chefs cook for you every day.’ And it’s true – we’d laugh, eat, go to people’s houses. It was fun. One year, we got 17 million views.”

Though the series came to a close around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it had already laid the groundwork for something even bigger: a full-production vegan TV show made for mainstream broadcast.

“We’d had our rehearsal. Now we were ready.”

Enter New Day New Chef – a high-quality, celebrity-packed cooking series co- produced with Emmy-winning director Eamonn McCrystal. Jane’s team filmed multiple seasons for PBS and Gusto TV, with special appearances from public figures like Billie Eilish and her mother, Maggie Baird.

“We won two Taste Awards, which are considered the Oscars of food. It was a top- flight production, and people loved it. Maggie Baird had her own full season, and we just wrapped another one.”

The success of New Day New Chef cemented UnchainedTV’s ability to tell compelling, professional stories that the mainstream media wouldn’t touch – not because the quality wasn’t there, but because the content didn’t serve advertiser interests.

“We became a nonprofit in 2018, but only recently officially changed our name to UnchainedTV. This was never about me – it’s about the movement.”

And the movement was growing, fast. Jane’s network expanded across platforms: PBS, Gusto TV, YouTube, and a growing list of digital streaming channels. From cooking shows to celebrity features, UnchainedTV was doing something no one else was – making vegan media entertaining, accessible, and free.

Part 3: Documentaries, Direct Action, and Journalism with Teeth

For Jane Velez-Mitchell, food was just the start. Behind every plate of vegan lasagna or meatless brunch item was a deeper story – a system of injustice that needed exposure. That’s where UnchainedTV’s journalism took center stage.

“We’re not just a cooking channel. We’re documenting the vegan and animal rights movement in real time.”

Jane and her team began producing award-winning documentaries like Countdown to Year Zero, which highlights the devastating impact of animal agriculture on climate change. The film profiles Dr. Sailesh Rao, a systems analyst and engineer who argues that the transition to a plant-based world is not only ethical – it’s urgent.

“He said something that stuck with me. We need to create a vegan world. That was the first time I ever heard someone articulate that clearly. If we don’t believe it’s possible, if we don’t say it out loud – how are we ever going to get there?”

But it wasn’t just environmental urgency driving Jane’s coverage. She wanted to show the emotional and political battles playing out in real time – like the open rescue trials of Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) activists, including Wayne Hsiung and Zoe Rosenberg.

“We decided to use the Court TV format. We’d have a reporter outside the courthouse, expert panelists, live updates – just like traditional trial coverage, but focused on animal rights.”

These broadcasts weren’t stunts. They were strategy. By adapting mainstream media formats to cover cases ignored – or misrepresented – by traditional outlets, UnchainedTV gave a platform to stories that would otherwise vanish in silence.

“When Wayne was on trial, we had a member of the European Parliament on our panel for five hours. That’s how committed people are to seeing justice done.”

Jane knows the stakes are high – and the playing field is tilted. Mainstream media, she points out, rarely covers solutions to climate change. Even when Oxford University released a study showing that heavy meat eaters could reduce their emissions by 70% by going plant-based, the story didn’t make it to broadcast news.

“The New York Times covered it. But did you see it on NBC? CNN? CBS? No. And that’s the problem. Advertiser-based media refuses to tell the truth when it threatens their sponsors.”

UnchainedTV isn’t just filling the gap – it’s redefining what animal rights journalism can be.

“We’re a multi-platform news and entertainment network for the vegan and plant- based lifestyle. We’re doing what the mainstream won’t. But to do that, we need our community’s help to amplify it.”

Part 4: Platforms, Challenges, and a Call to Action

UnchainedTV isn’t just a website. It’s a multi-platform operation broadcasting on everything from smart TVs to smartphones, social media, and fast-channel networks around the world. But for founder Jane Velez-Mitchell, one of the biggest hurdles isn’t distribution – it’s communication.

“We’re available in so many places that it actually becomes hard to explain to people. You can get us on Roku, on Amazon Fire Stick, on Apple TV devices – not Apple TV the network, the device – and even on Samsung and LG smart TVs.”

For those who aren’t tech-savvy, that abundance of access can feel confusing. But the team is working hard to streamline messaging. Jane wants people to understand just how easy – and impactful – it is to use UnchainedTV as a tool for activism.

“You can download the app for free, and you don’t even need to sign up with your email. Just download it and you can text videos to people instantly. It’s one of the fastest ways to share life-changing content.”

And the content? It’s exploding. From Kale Krew and At Home with the Jenners to documentaries, news, and vegan lifestyle features – UnchainedTV has over 2,000 videos and growing.

But with growth comes strain. Jane is clear-eyed about the challenges her nonprofit faces: limited resources, no paid ad budget, and a constant race to keep up with an expanding media landscape.

“Netflix and the big guys spend billions on promotion. We made our streaming network for around $50,000. We don’t have the huge budget that mainstream media has, it’s smaller – but we do have the content. Now we need help getting the word out.”

That help, she says, starts with the community. Not just by watching – but by amplifying.

“Follow us. Share us. Talk about us. We are the only free nonprofit streaming network for the plant-based and animal rights movement. We’re small, but we’re everywhere – and we’re doing what needs to be done.”

It’s not just about distribution. It’s about representation. Jane and her team are working with other activists to call out biased media coverage, highlight underrepresented stories, and push back against the meat industry’s war on veganism.

“We’re collaborating with VegMediaWatch. It’s a new initiative that holds journalists accountable when they misrepresent veganism. We’re naming names – but doing it professionally. It’s fact-based correction, not trolling.”

And when Jane says “we,” she means it. Though UnchainedTV has a few paid contractors, it runs almost entirely on volunteer energy. Editors, livestreamers, article writers, social media creators, and tech support staff from around the world lend their time to the cause.

“We have people who go live from Europe. We have folks running our TikTok, our website, our newsletter. Our board members are hands-on. We’re doing all this from a laptop and a living room – but you’d never know it from the impact.”

From global streaming to social media collaborations, from red-carpet premieres to activist trials, Jane is building something rare: a nonprofit media network rooted in truth, fueled by compassion, and powered by community.

Part 5: What Comes Next

As our conversation wound down, Jane still had more ideas, more calls to action, more passion in her voice than most media executives muster in a month. UnchainedTV isn’t just a platform – it’s a movement in motion. And Jane’s vision for the future is as expansive as it is urgent.

“We’re global, we’re everywhere – and we want to be in every language. Spanish, French, Korean, whatever it takes. The tools are here now. AI can help us do it. But we need people.”

That’s a phrase she returned to often: we need people. Not donors in name only, but engaged viewers, tech-savvy supporters, passionate storytellers. The network can host your cooking series, your documentary, your micro-moment of change. If it serves animals and truth, there’s a home for it here.

“This is 100% free. We’re not building a brand to sell. No one owns this. It’s a nonprofit, and we’re running it on a shoestring because we believe in it. What we don’t have in cash, we make up for in commitment.”

Jane knows better than anyone that media has power. After decades inside the corporate machine – navigating advertisers, sidestepping red tape, and smuggling truth into the margins – she’s now writing her own rules. And she wants us all to help rewrite the story.

“We are literally breaking planetary boundaries. Once we cross certain lines, there’s no turning back. And we are not seeing that reflected in mainstream media. That’s why UnchainedTV exists. We are the counter-narrative – and we are real journalism.”

So, what comes next?

More content. More languages. More voices. More ways to meet people where they are – on TikTok, Roku, in their inbox, at vegan brunches, and beyond. Jane envisions not just a media outlet, but a fully integrated force for change.

And she’s not waiting for permission.

“We’ve got the cameras. We’ve got the truth. Now we need the movement to rally behind it.”

UnchainedTV is already documenting the vegan future. The only question is how far – and how fast – we’re willing to help it grow.

Because the future deserves media that tells the truth – and animals deserve voices that won’t be silenced.