Politics in agriculture is tricky. Being an agricultural media outlet, writing about politics is even trickier.
National digital publications such as HuffPost, The Daily Beast, and Breitbart have redefined expectations people have from the news media and have gutted core journalism ideals such as fairness and honesty. Mix in the contributions from billionaire activists like Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett, both of whom reshaped American newspaper coverage through their ownership, and it becomes increasingly complicated to parse out the honest reporting from the political “side” that the publication’s leadership votes on.
In agriculture, it’s clear that Green New Deal-type initiatives have a political side. As do opinions over climate change, or stances on international trade.
But what about crop insurance? Or support for genetic engineering? Or talking about veterans or diversity in agriculture? How about access to farmers markets or innovations in vertical farming? Both left- and right-leaning valid folks have stakes in these topics, to the point where their opinions might align.
I’ve long recognized — and been fascinated with — the way people with largely opposing political ideologies found common ground about farm technologies, particularly biotech. I’m not sure there’s anyone in my circles who I agree with on every point of every topic, yet I respected the fact that people who held beliefs that significantly conflicted with mine could align with me on some key farm topics. But I also understand that not everyone who has advocated for agriculture feels the same way.
AGDAILY recently saw someone on its Facebook page say in a comment that they since deleted: “AGDAILY is increasingly affiliated with a political side, but they still act blown away every time someone on that political side [does] anti-ag stuff.”
To point, AGDAILY doesn’t consider itself fitting a specific public sphere, and realistically, sometimes we have to cover things and people we don’t like. We are agriculture first, supporting the good of this industry even if we don’t always agree with everything everyone who is a part of the industry says.
If a topic is relevant to farmers, we try to address it, whether through a news story, a column, or an enterprise article. We want to be a conduit for information that will help producers.
And we take people and publications to task when they falsely accuse agriculture of “destroying the planet,” even though agriculture has made more strides than any other industry to reduce its carbon footprint, including partnering with conservation groups and aggressively pursuing climate goals. We talk about faith in rural America, while also standing up to emotion- or activist-driven initiatives that belittle real science. We try to explore the truth of today’s food and farming buzzwords.
Amid all of this, I am especially proud that AGDAILY is rated as a “Least Bias” news source, just a hair toward right-center on the political spectrum, with “High” factual reporting, according to MediaBiasFactCheck, the media industry’s definitive source on such matters:
The rating website said of AGDAILY, “Articles and headlines typically rely on low emotional wording. … In general, the news is reported factually and from a pro-science and low-biased perspective.”
By comparison, how did those other major news outlets I mentioned above do, according to MediaBiasFactCheck?
- HuffPost: Left Bias with Mixed factual reporting
- The Daily Beast: Left Bias with Mixed factual reporting
- Breitbart: Extreme Right Bias with Mixed factual reporting, as well as being listed as a “questionable source”
And while I don’t have exact traffic numbers for any of those sites, I can say with confidence that all are far, far bigger than AGDAILY, and by extension, are likely much more influential in steering what society knows and how they perceive things. It’s also very likely that, aside from the reach of RFD-TV, no ag-centric media outlet even comes close.
So when people read a headline like, Biden Takes Gloves Off to Tear Into ‘Convicted Felon’ Trump, on a news article from one of these outlets, it’s going to hit differently with readers than a boring “unbiased” headline would have. That publication’s audience is being pressured — sometimes subtly, sometime overtly — to approach the article with a specific perspective, one where the “good guy” and the “bad guy” is basically predetermined.
There’s little incentive for media outlets to amend this approach. Research from Carnegie Mellon University shows that ads from well-known firms and organizations continue to appear on misinformation websites, thereby financing such outlets. More so, that same research suggests that artificial intelligence will make the situation even worse.
As someone who has been in journalism — in newspapers, magazines, and digital media — for nearly 25 years, I’ve seen countless changes to ownership, staffing, resources, and delivery, not to mention the tone in which news itself is conveyed to the public. And I don’t think the industry as a whole will ever go back to the way it was — where reporters have time to dig deep and research and where articles benefit from a series of checks and balances that start with the writer and include an assigning editor, two copy editors, and a final news editor.
In today’s media landscape, the voice speaking to you isn’t always going to be a perfect one, and it’s important to recognize that.
Ryan Tipps is the founder and managing editor of AGDAILY. He has covered farming since 2011, and his writing has been honored by state- and national-level agricultural organizations.
