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The missing storyI'm tired--very tired. And frustrated--very frustrated. Some days I feel like just throwing up my hands and giving up. I had one of those days last week, when in my e-mail box I got word of a series of articles in the Washington Post. The cute little graphic, complete with a red barn, says, "Harvesting cash. Working a farm subsidy." The series ran some time ago, but with the farm bill debate heating up, the articles are resurfacing. Farmers are an easy target apparently. Can't farmers catch a break. Just once? How nice it would be to open a mainstream newspaper and read, "Farm payments help ensure safe food supply." It makes me embarrassed to be a journalist. I get frustrated with mainstream journalists whose main goal is to do the "big story." It is simply the easy way out. It is easy to find a story from the squeaky wheel. It is much more difficult to find and write a story about "the things that went right." I'm not so naive to say that the farm bill isn't flawed. There are many things that work their way into farm bill legislation that by all rights, just don't work out the way they were intended. But I'm also smart enough to know that is politics. There isn't a bill signed into law that doesn't have flaws. And I see nothing wrong with writing stories about those flaws. The problem is, as with many stories in the mainstream media, the story doesn't stop there. Yes, the sensational story stops there, but that's not the whole story. There was not one story in the Post series that discussed the benefits of the farm bill. Not one story about how the farm bill worked as intended, to provide money to a farmer who was struggling to make ends meet. Not one story about how rural development funds helped a rural community provide for its citizens. You would think, reading this series, that there was not one good thing about the farm bill. What kind of editor lets a series like that run? If those stories had crossed my desk, even if I agreed with each and every one, it would still be my ethical duty to say, "There has to be another side to this story." Apparently ethics are of no concern to the editors and journalists of this series. While it seems like nothing can be done and throwing up my hands is the best solution, I know I can't. For it is my job as an agricultural journalist to tell the farmer's side of the story -- because right now, it seems that no one else will. Holly Martin can be reached by phone at 1-800-452-7171 ext. 1806 or e-mail at hmartin@hpj.com. 10/8/07 Date: 10/3/07
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