Media Overhyping Organics

Wednesday, July 21, 2010
 STUDY FINDS MEDIA MAY BE OVERHYPING BENEFITS OF ORGANIC FOOD, AGRICULTURE

Kansas State University
MANHATTAN -- News accounts of organic agriculture and organic food are more likely to be positive than negative and inaccurately claim organic food is safer, according to Kansas State University's Doug Powell.

Powell, an associate professor of food safety, is the co-author of "Coverage of organic agriculture in North American newspapers: Media -- linking food safety, the environment, human health and organic agriculture," just published in the British Food Journal.

The paper is based on a study Powell conducted from 1999-2004 with two colleagues at the University of Guelph in Canada, Stacey Cahill and Katija Morley. Cahill was one of Powell's students at the time.

The team explored how topics of organic food and agriculture were discussed in five North American newspapers. Using the content analysis technique, the 618 articles collected were analyzed for topic, tone and theme regarding food safety, environmental concerns and human health.

The prominent topics of the articles were genetic engineering, pesticides and organic farming, Powell said.

The analysis found 41.4 percent of the articles had a neutral tone toward organic agriculture and food, 36.9 percent had a positive tone, 15.5 percent were mixed and 6.1 percent were negative, Powell said.

"We concluded that articles about organic production in the selected time period were seldom negative," he said. "Organic agriculture was often portrayed in the media as an alternative to allegedly unsafe and environmentally damaging modern agriculture practices. That means organic was being defined by what it isn't, rather than what it is."     Read More 

This is an interesting look at how the media rarely uses objectivity in their reporting any more. They have been more than happy to just jump on a bandwagon of untruths about modern agriculture. There is no doubt that all production systems have a place in agriculture, that’s not the point of this discussion. The point is that the media is failing their clientele with their preference to unobjectively follow trends rather than inform their readers. ~Troy

Anti-Ag Media

Speakers: Anti-ag media threatens modern farming
Sunday, October 25, 2009

By Nat Williams

ST. LOUIS — The anti-agricultural bias in the general news media is not just upsetting, it literally threatens the future of the industry.

That alarming theme was sounded by radio host Mike Adams and media consultant Loren Wassell, who recently spoke to the St. Louis AgriBusiness Club.

Adams doesn’t mince words when discussing the poor job his colleagues in the media are doing on the subject of agriculture.

“As a member of the media, I’m embarrassed and ashamed to see some of the stuff I’ve seen in my own profession,” he said. “It’s sad that we’ve been a big part of the problem rather than part of the solution.”

The host of the nationally syndicated AgriTalk radio program stressed the impact of reckless reporting that puts agriculture in a bad light.

“This is a topic that I think is one of the most serious ones we can possibly deal with in agriculture because it threatens our very existence,” he said. “We’re talking about literally a battle for the hearts and minds and support of the customers that we’re in business to serve.”

Read More

Lately the mainstream media has done a horrific job in trying to share information about agriculture. It’s been embarrassing at best and at worst it’s been a deliberate attack against the very people that provide this country with food and fiber. Many times they refuse to even talk to farmers and ranchers about the subject at hand, preferring to use Google as their resource. The profession of journalism has certainly gone backwards in the opinion of many agriculturalists but we still have to do what we can to work with them. We need to continue trying to educate journalists about the importance of a domestically grown food supply.