We always stress that it is important that we in the swine industry tell our own story or someone else will tell it for us. A recent 60 Minutes episode highlighted why that is not always as easy as it sounds. The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) was contacted about an opportunity to sit down with CBS’s Leslie Stahl to discuss issues associated with the Salmonella outbreak that occurred a few years ago in the Pacific Northwest. In an effort to be transparent and tell our own story to a broad audience, NPPC offered up Dr Liz Wagstrom as the one most knowledgeable about the facts of the case and the circumstances surrounding the positions taken by the swine industry and animal health officials. Dr Wagstrom graciously agreed to participate in the interview.
I am sure those of you who know her would agree that Dr Wagstrom is rarely one to shy away from an opportunity to try to educate the public about what we do and why we do it. But, more importantly, she is also well-versed in the challenges our industry faces and the efforts we have undertaken to address those challenges. Working in Washington, DC, she is no stranger to interacting with those that disagree with the livestock industry or simply do not understand it. I think all of us would agree, however, that sitting one-on-one with a seasoned investigative reporter, who likely has an agenda, in an unfamiliar room with bright lights and video cameras would be a bit nerve-wracking. Now imagine doing it for 80 minutes.
I knew that Liz had agreed to do the interview. She was well prepared and understood the challenges such an interview posed. Having worked with Liz for more than 20 years in a myriad of situations (we always debate who is going to play nice vet or mean vet), I have every confidence in her knowledge and experience as a swine veterinarian and a staunch supporter of the pork industry. There is no one I would rely on more to effectively tell our story than her. I am entirely confident that Liz did a fantastic job answering the questions posed to her during the interview and was an effective advocate for swine veterinary medicine and the pork industry. It was potentially a good opportunity to explain the industry’s position on the challenges associated with on-farm sampling following an outbreak of foodborne illness. Unfortunately, 60 Minutes had other ideas.
In the days following the broadcast, I received several calls from AASV members who either watched the program live or viewed it on the CBS website. The callers wanted to make sure that I was aware of the program and to let me know that it did not portray the swine industry in a fair or favorable light. I am not sure this was really a surprise to anyone who has tracked the portrayal of the swine industry in local and national media over the years. The level of bias evident in the mainstream media outlets these days is appalling and was on full display in the 60 Minutes broadcast. Of the 80 minutes Dr Wagstrom spent with Ms Stahl, the show’s producers edited her interview to less than 150 seconds.
The US Constitution affords the press the freedom to distribute information and opinions without restraint or censorship. This is a unique and powerful attribute of a free democratic society and should be protected. The value of the information afforded the public, however, is directly related to the integrity of the journalist distributing the information.
The 60 Minutes story is just an example of the abysmal state of journalistic ethics in society today. In a time when it has never been easier to store and distribute massive amounts of information via the internet, why don’t media outlets make recordings, videos, or transcripts of interviews available to the public in their entirety and unedited? Let the public determine what to believe based on all the information that is available without the biased influence of a profit-driven media company.
As I see it, the role of journalists in society should be to provide the citizenry with the information they need in order to form their own opinions about an issue. To be effective, the journalist should ask questions that enlighten all sides of an issue and then make those responses available to the public in a transparent and unbiased manner. Journalists should not be the decider of an issue, but rather the resource that provides the information to educate the public.
As many of you of a certain generation will recognize, the title of this article is Walter Cronkite’s famous sign off. Cronkite also famously said, “In seeking truth, you have to get both sides of a story.” He was perhaps the last of the true journalists. I think he best summed up ethics in journalism by noting that, “The ethic of the journalist is to recognize one’s prejudices, biases, and avoid getting them into print.” Until that vision of journalistic utopia arrives, however, it remains important that we continue to offer our version of life one-on-one in an effort to educate those who will listen in the hope that each of those we reach will be better informed and capable of sharing a more informed version of the story. In the meantime, I would like to say thank you to Dr Wagstrom for her willingness to put herself on the front lines to tell our story.
Harry Snelson, DVM
Executive Director