Wordblog

The coverage of the foot and mouth disease outbreak by newspapers is criticised today by Peter Wilby in his Guardian column. Rightly so. He starts:

I’ve always been amazed by how the press gets so excited about foot and mouth disease. Farming accounts for 1% of the economy and barely 2% of the workforce. Genuine farmers - family-run businesses that could truly face ruin - are far outnumbered by agri-conglomerates and TV producers tending to a few sheep at weekends. An MP for one of the most rural constituencies in southern England once told me he’d never actually met any farmers, and I doubt most news editors have either.

I wrote about the same subject after seeing only the early TV reports, so I am glad to return to the topic. While heartily agreeing with Wilby, I think it is just because agriculture is now only 1% of the economy that the story is overplayed. There is now little collective understanding of agriculture in the media.

The 2001 outbreak was overplayed, because of terrible handling by the government as well as a lack of knowledge among journalists. Compare this with the previous very large epidemic (I know I should have written epizootic) in the 1960s when the coverage was much more measured.

Then there were more journalists around who understood the issues. With the diminishing share of the economy and the the declining perception that the country should feed itself agriculture ceased to be important to newspapers and broadcasters.

Country dwellers have changed too. Fewer farmers but more commuters and weekenders to drive to the farm shop to buy their bananas and then complain that the village shop is closing.