We did something we haven’t done in a long while. It was a thing we used to do as a news organization every few weeks or so. We held an editorial board meeting with a prominent member of our agricultural community.
Why, you might ask, is that important? You can check out page 13 and decide whether it was or wasn’t for yourself, but from our journalists’ perspective, it seemed pretty darned good.
In part, it might have piqued our interest because it was an interesting subject, but nearly everyone I meet in agriculture in pretty interesting to me.
Related story: Senate takes leading role in nation’s agriculture
It might have been because we stopped having these small events here at our Saskatoon head office at the beginning of COVID and it was novel. But I think it was more than that.
You might even ask yourself, what is an editorial board?
News organizations will often sit down with leaders in their communities, including business, social and government folks. Often these are politicians. And this case, it was a Canadian senator. Not just any old senator, this was the chair of the agriculture and forestry committee.
When we arrange these events, we try to think of the detailed issues you might want to know about, but we also take advantage of the opportunities to consider the larger pictures.
In this case we did discuss the changing role of the Senate when it comes to agriculture. The senate’s ag committee, different from that of Parliament, also takes longer looks at big issues that face Canadians. In part it is because senators don’t have to stand for election and satisfy the voters’ immediate concerns.
In the past we have tried to treat editorial board subjects to some of those big picture questions. That works well sometimes, however it is much harder to stick exclusively to a set of speaking points when there is a room with four of five journalists from the same publication posing questions.
In the past, we have had minsters of agriculture, provincial and federal, corporate leaders from grain and livestock businesses, scientists, brokers and bankers come and sit down with us for a chat. Of course, they have their information agendas to satisfy as well.
When we sit with them, ultimately, we sit there on your behalf. We hope to ask the questions you might ask. And we report back to you with the answers.
I look forward to having many more of these in the near future; for you.
