Opinion
22 FARMERS WEEKLY – farmersweekly.co.nz – August 3, 2020
EDITORIAL
Media’s essence is still the same
A
FTER nearly 50 years in newspapers, I’ve been given a last hurrah as I retire. As a dyedin-the-wool newspaperman, I’m saddened by some of what I see happening to the media – the way it is manipulated, the populist approach, the lack of substance in many cases, the lack of investment. But I’m heartened by the opportunities technological changes present to those coming in today. I’m not going to tell them what to do. It’s up to them to make of it what they can. It’s also up to media consumers to make their choices to help shape the media. I hope everyone chooses wisely because those old sayings are still true. Content is king and information is power. It doesn’t matter whether it is delivered on a sheet of paper, a computer, a phone or a podcast. Those are just delivery mechanisms. Journalists still have an important role in sifting the wheat from the chaff and relentlessly questioning those who need questioning. I’m not sure a machine can replace human journalists who like to make a nuisance of themselves and refuse to go away. It’s important in a world experiencing rapid change in so many areas – and with increasingly powerful corporations and politicians seeking to impose their will on the hoi polloi – that trained journalists maintain their healthy disrespect for authority and skepticism about everything. Technology makes it so much easier for vested interests, people with an axe to grind and even the obsessed and downright crazy to put a slant on things so the world needs journalists who are not partisan but simply chase a story because a good story is a good story, no matter who or what it is about. The rural sector is well served with media giving it information. But it, like all media, is susceptible to the blurring of lines. Its readers must demand it clearly shows what is data, what is fact, what is news and what is opinion. And those people running farms and primary sector businesses must learn how to use the new media landscape. While the new media does what it has always done – deliver material to readers, it has also become more interactive, so everyone can join in. That’s how farmers will get their message across. Cheerio.
Stephen Bell
LETTERS
Less interference needed to help young farmers READING Farmers Weekly on Tuesday, I was confronted by the image and words of Mark Patterson. It was interesting to note that he was the “Agriculture spokesman” for New Zealand First, yet I and no one I know has ever heard of him. It just so happens that he’s number eight on the New Zealand First party list, and in fact an MP! While I think it is laudable that parliamentarians are making efforts to help young farmers into farms, less interference would achieve that aim faster than more. I can’t help thinking that the shearers, shepherds and sharemilkers of this world would have an easier time buying farms if they weren’t being taxed into submission. When they do manage to hold onto some of their hard earned income, they find that they have to fight against airlines
and sovereign wealth funds being subsidised by their tax dollars provided by Shane Jones to help them plant trees. I think that Shane Jones, the Honourable Minister for Slush-funds and Pork-Barrels, is going to have to try harder than this to get us to forget that he called us all rednecks only a few months ago. It does make me happy to be confident that he will be soon weaned off his ministerial salary. David Skiffington Cheltenham
Wool be back YOUR editorial, Hey, lets call it the Wool Board, Farmers Weekly July 20, raised a number of issues around the decreasing price of wool, especially strong wool. As an older, retired sheep farmer and one who was a
member of the Meat and Wool Boards electoral committee back in the late 80s and early 90s I link the start of the price decline to events back then. At that time candidates for both the Meat and Wool Boards made presentations to the committee then faced questions. Deficiencies were soon exposed and only suitably qualified people made it onto the boards. Along came James Aitken and his Farmers for Positive Change group, who succeeded in forcing a vote to abolish the electoral committee system and replace it with the country divided into six wards. So, immediately there was a change from candidates being closely scrutinised by the committee to one where name recognition and unlimited spending on one’s campaign were the prime requisites to getting elected to a board.
I well remember one of the first people elected under the new system boarding a plane to take us to the Wool Board annual meeting putting three bottles of whiskey in his overhead locker and declaring “We need to relax after talking about wool all day”. And despite Aitken’s claims the system would throw up better qualified board members and farmers would take more interest in their board that has proved to be well wide of the mark. Barely 30% of farmers bothered to vote and the calibre of board members was sometimes lacking. Eventually, supposedly with farmer support, the board structure was gradually replaced by a nebulous body with very little power and even less direction. Continued next page
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