REGINA – The public is missing the real news from the Canadian Western Agribition because reporters don’t think it is news, some cattle producers say.
“There’s a hell of a lot more than just the headlines stuff,” said one annoyed cattle producer during the Saskatchewan Cattle Breeders Association annual meeting.
“I wanted to know what the average of the commercial cattle show was, and it wasn’t reported.”
Many cattle breeders said TV and radio reports didn’t carry much news about this year’s Agribition, and the stories they did carry weren’t important.
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“We just heard about that $61,000 elk,” said one about the TV news on the day of the commercial cattle sale.
Agribition manager Wayne Gamble said staff have no say about what stories the news media covers, and reporters back off if they feel they are being manipulated.
He said he finds it surprising what the news media find interesting and what they don’t bother reporting.
For example, a story about a farmer breaking his leg on the way to the Regina farm show but going anyway could receive a lot of coverage.
Incorrect coverage
In a real example, reporters and film crews were at the scene of an injury when a woman was hurt in a cattle pen, but reported many details incorrectly, Gamble said.
But while he agreed that some of the “headline” news reports don’t contain valuable information, he said they do pique the public’s curiosity.
“The job still gets done,” Gamble said. “You get the cattle show on TV.”
Internet useful
Gamble said Agribition’s internet website is getting more information that farmers are interested in out to the media. Various results are listed on the site, and some radio and TV stations are taking the information and putting it on the air.
Making information easy to use is important when working with the news media, Gamble said.
“They’re fundamentally lazy people.”
A cattle producer said many reporters don’t know much about agriculture.
“If you turned them loose in a barn they wouldn’t know what breed of cattle they were looking at,” he said.
Gamble said many media organizations have cut back on staff, so there are fewer people covering more areas.
He said there are still a few broadcasters who understand agriculture, but they are few and far between.
The best thing producers can do is make sure their breed associations are getting stories out fast to the Agribition media liaisons.
That way, at least there is a chance of getting information onto the airwaves.
“It’s a hit and miss thing,” Gamble said.
