January 2013
 |
| Picture from Wiki Commons |
At the end of the year, a high-pressure media campaign seemed to spring from nowhere (see A FAIRY TALE FOR CHRISTMAS - December 2012). No one actually said anything that hasn't been said a thousand times before before, but comments on GM made by Owen Paterson inexplicably became 'news', as did another call for a debate on GM by Scottish MP Murdo Fraser.
What clever PR turned these
hackneyed comments on GM into major headlines?
In January 2013, Owen Paterson gave a
speech at the Oxford Farming Conference - an important annual platform
for debate in agriculture. The reason for the earlier
news-that-wasn't became clear: it was put in place to prepare the
ground for the next stage in the UK government's GM push.
The press-coverage of Paterson's speech
was spectacular. For example...
(It's noteworthy that the last article
seems to be the only one which blatantly referred to the government
tactics as “A PR campaign to change the image of genetically
modified food”, and connected the dots between the December
non-news splash and the January one.)
Then the story gets really interesting.
Owen Paterson's speech at the Oxford Farming Conference covered a
wide range of important topical issues. The bit about GM consisted
of no more than two brief paragraphs in the middle of his
58-paragraph delivery: one defined the problem as britain's failure
to follow the GM pack; the second defined the solution as a PR
campaign to persuade the public.
Excerpt from Owen Paterson's speech at
the Oxford Farming Conference
"... When we're talking about innovation, we should also consider GM. In 2011, 16 million farmers in 29 countries grew GM products on 160 million hectares. That's 11 per cent of the world's arable land. To put it in context that's 6 times larger than the surface area of the UK.I fully appreciate the strong feelings on both sides of the debate. GM needs to be considered in its proper overall context with a balanced understanding of the risks and benefits. We should not, however, be afraid of making the case to the public about the potential benefits of GM beyond the food chain, for example, significantly reducing the use of pesticides and inputs such as diesel. As well as making the case at home, we also need to go through the rigorous processes that the EU has in place to ensure the safety of GM crops. I believe that GM offers great opportunities but I also recognise that we owe a duty to the public to reassure them that it is a safe and beneficial innovation...."
What clever PR was going on behind
the scenes to induce the newspapers to turn these few, buried, words
into major headlines?
And the story doesn't end there. The
next day, the Guardian kept the ball rolling with the headlines:
"Washout summer
and flooded autumn have persuaded an increasing number of farmers to
start using the technology."
*Note When it was pointed out that these
words clearly suggest that some farmers in Britain are already
using GM crops and that more of them will now do so, which is totally
untrue, the headlines were amended to:
Bad weather
prompting more British farmers to favour GM use
-
Washout summer
and flooded autumn have persuaded an increasing number of farmers to
back use of the technology”
Most Guardian readers will, however,
already have read the original, misleading version before it was
changed, and their understanding of the article will have been
altered by the expectation aroused by the headline.
In fact, when you read the article, the
'more' British farmers whose views have made the headlines become an
unspecified number of 'many individual' farmers, and we never do find
out how many they're more of. Even in its amended form, the
headlines suggest a major shift in farmer opinion which is then only
supported by two quotes from 'individual' farmers.
What clever PR induced a respected
national newspaper to print such a misleading headline?
OUR COMMENT
There's some unaccountably bad
journalism going on here, and the editors seem to be asleep at the
wheel. Either the UK press has lost the plot, or someone with a lot
of clout is pulling their strings.
Watch out for media push No.3 of the UK
Government's GM campaign to change the image of GM: it won't be far
behind, and next time round you'll recognise it. If you see
any of the above tricks ('news' which clearly isn't, cherry-picking
out GM aspects to create 'news', misleading or unsupported headlines,
or any other novel rats you smell) drop an e-mail to the Editor and
complain.
To paraphrase one commentator on the
Daily Mail article: it is absolutely nobody’s job to make you
eat GM.
SOURCES
- Environment Secretary Owen Paterson addresses the 2013 Oxford Farming Conference, DEFRA News 3.01.13, www.defra.gov.uk
- Louise Gray, Environment Secretary Owen Paterson tells farmers to push GM, Telegraph, 3.01.13
- Fiona Harvey, GM food: British public 'should be persuaded of the benefits', Guardian, 3.01.13
- Julia Glotz, Don't be afraid to make case for GM, Paterson tells farmers, The Grocer, 3.01.13
- Whitney McFerron, U.K..'s Paterson Says GM Crops Represent an Opportunity, 2.01.13
- Matt Chorley, Ministers launch PR drive to shake off 'Frankenstein food' image of GM crops, Daily Mail, 3.01.13
- Fiona Harvey and Rebecca Smithers, Bad weather prompting more British farmers to favour (or 'consider', depending on the date) GM use, Guardian, 4.01.13
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment. All comments are moderated before they are published.