Brand and manage your message, VanDusen advises farm leaders

Increased consumer interest in local food and food safety may have given the farm industry "a bit of a door' in getting its story told in the daily media, according to veteran journalist Tom VanDusen of Russell, who spoke on agriculture in the media at the annual meeting of the Dundas Federation of Agriculture Fri., Feb. 22.

VanDusen, a press officer with Mulroney-era Agriculture Minister Don Mazankowski and a daily newspaper reporter with more than 30 years of experience in covering the Valley, told the gathering that they're barely on the radar of daily newspaper editors, who see farming as "boring" unless there's a "scary story" to be told.

While rural readers are well served by their community newspapers and agricultural publications, most daily newspaper reporters have a "half-baked understanding" of farm issues and are "unable to separate the wheat from the chaff" when it comes to reporting on the subject.

Walkerton is the classic case in point, according to VanDusen, who also writes for a variety of farm publications and fills two pages a week in the Ottawa Sun with news from the Valley.

Unable to understand normal farming practices, the mainstream urban media laid the blame for the 2000 tainted water tragedy at farming's door when in fact it was the tale of a pair of municipal employees with a drinking problem.