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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2019-02-14, Page 5These days I have to feel sorry for my neighbours who are livestock farmers. If you listen to urban media critics or use social media, farmers are to blame for environmental degradation, shortening the lives of the meat-eating population and, of course, causing misery to their animals. How did these folks, salt-of-the-earth-type people, turn into monsters? Well they didn’t, of course. It’s the perceptions of society that have changed, often because of misperceptions. It’s become difficult to separate the threads between those who think eating other animals is immoral, those who worry about methane from cattle burps speeding up climate change, and those who see danger in eating red meat. It was nutritionists who started livestock farmers down this sorry road. A half-century ago they discovered that excess levels of saturated fats can block arteries and lead to strokes and heart attacks. Meat, eggs and butter were blamed for the problem. After initial resistance from those who resist change, farmers took up the challenge. I can’t even estimate the number of meetings of beef and pork farmers I attended over the years in which the need to produce leaner meat was emphasized and the latest developments in genetics or feeding protocols were suggested as solutions to the problem. Today’s beef and pork have never been leaner, yet the same old perception of artery-clogging fat hangs on. Next came animal-welfare concerns. Groups like People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) questioned how farm animals were raised. Now and then they’d sneak a video out of a barn showing a farmer mistreating his animals. The majority of livestock farmers, of course, keep animals because they like animals. Few set out to hurt animals (though they may lose their tempers now and then). As before, there was resistance to change initially because farmers thought PETA members were a lot of wackos but they have made huge changes in animal husbandry practices over the last two decades. For instance, after research showed pigs are most happy in groups, housing of sows in larger groups was mandated meaning expensive changes to barns. The old bank barns that were symbolic of farm country for so very long have been coming down, replaced by huge, light, airy buildings. Part of this is economic because farmers needed to produce larger volumes to pay the bills, but every time I’ve toured one of these buildings I can’t help thinking how much better it must be to live (for the animals) and work (for the farm staff) in such an environment compared to the dingy stables of the past. But the initial concern about how animals are treated has expanded to the point where any animal that’s being used for the benefit of humans is being exploited, whether a chicken that lays eggs or a cow that produces milk. And, of course, eating animals is right up there with the Holocaust in terms of moral failure. Finally, the growing concern for climate change has put cattle farmers in the cross-hairs of the environmental movement. Because cattle eat vegetation and must break it down to useable nutrients, they burp. Those burps contain methane gas which is even more destructive than carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. I’m not sure who thought to measure the volume of cattle burps but nobody seems to have decided to measure the amount of methane that billions of humans eating a bean-filled, plant-based diet would create. I can’t help thinking that farmers are victims of the fascination with what’s new. The news media wouldn’t exist without the “new” in news. Social media also thrives on passing along the latest ideas to your friends. Farmers producing food seems like old stuff. Since the post-World War I song “How’re ya going to keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Paris”, the perception is that farmers are backward and want to escape to the city as quickly as possible. So there are few defenders of farmers when the attacks begin. When the new Canadian Food Guide was released recently the focus of the media was on the elimination of the meat and dairy categories and meat eggs and dairy being just one of several protein sources. While the guide about nutrition, some media stories suggested switching to plant-based protein would also be good for the environment. As if Health Canada and urban media reporting weren’t bad enough, livestock farmers also have to deal with celebrities like singer Ariana Grande or actress Natalie Portman who urge their millions of social media followers to give up meat – with lots of firm conviction but little concrete information. You’ll pardon cattle farmers if they think not all the b.s. is in the manure tank. Other Views Ours is a society steeped in chauvinism Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk Being a livestock farmer’s hard now Shawn Loughlin Shawn’s Sense Not to stereotype those who stereotype, but you can usually guess where tales of discrimination or chauvinism can occur. It’s unfortunate, but that’s just the way the world works until we make it better. I guess that’s why it shocked me deeply to learn that statistics, something that should be completely free of bias, can be pretty chauvinistic as well. In last week’s edition of The Citizen, I wrote a feature story focused on local hockey goalie Kayla Black and her involvement with a goalie clinic for the Blyth Brussels Minor Hockey Association. Kayla is quite an accomplished goaltender, having played in the American collegiate hockey system. She won several accolades while tending net for the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs. That’s impressive for a player who started out in Blyth minor hockey (though not entirely unheard of, as we’ll get to). I sat down with Kayla at Blyth Cowbell Brewing Company (where she works) last Monday to talk to her about the clinic and her past as a goaltender. As I wrote last week, I like to have a certain level of knowledge before I start taking notes for a story. Whether that means conducting research before a council meeting or doing some professional stalking of a person before an interview, I hate being completely unprepared (though I also hate over-preparing, as that leads to me directing the conversation, which could bypass interesting stories). I gave myself 15 minutes or so to do some brief research on Kayla before I interviewed her, but, as I found out, that wasn’t enough. See, Kayla isn’t the first high-level athlete I’ve interviewed. Heck, she’s not even the first high-level goalie I’ve interviewed, just look at the Peters family. Actually, that’s a great idea. Let’s look at some members of the Peters family. Let’s start with Justin Peters. A quick search for “Justin Peters hockey” brings up multiple sites detailing his successes with NHL teams, Team Canada, and AHL teams. Some sites go all the way back to his time with the Huron- Perth Lakers. Searching for Justin’s younger brother Anthony, who currently plays for the Wilkes- Barre Scranton Penguins, the AHL affiliate of the Pittsburgh Penguins, shows similar results, tracking back to his time with the Lakers. Alex Peters search results are similar, going through St. Mary’s University, where he currently studies and plays, back to the Huron- Perth Lakers in 2011-2012. To be honest, I didn’t need to Google the Peters boys. I’ve done the research before for stories on the three of them because they’re pretty talented hockey players. It was because of the ease through which I found their statistics that I anticipated a similar experience when it came time to research Kayla. Unfortunately, I fell victim to that old “assume” adage. Despite having brushes with the national hockey system and four years in collegiate hockey, there is no central location to find Kayla’s history and I can only assume that’s because she’s, well, a she. I was shocked and dismayed and I’m not typing that lightly (a disclaimer I’m providing because I’ve been accused of being dramatic). I mentioned it to my editor Shawn, expressing my frustration, and then left the office to sit down for an interview with Kayla. I started that interview with an apology. I said to her that I’m sorry, because I had to ask her about her history, something I usually would’ve had a grip on. I then said, I guess I don’t need to apologize, because it wasn’t for a lack of trying. In the back of my head, however, I felt I did need to apologize. Here is a talented young hockey player who, because she’s part of half of the population who have two X chromosomes, is given less attention than her male counterparts. I felt I had to apologize because I’m a man and, well, I guess that makes me a part of the problem. Gender plays a big role in sports, whether that’s right or not. The NBA has exponentially more fans than the WNBA. The NHL doesn’t even seem to have a comparison: there’s the National Women’s Hockey League and the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, neither of which have the same following as the NHL. I’m not going to get dramatic here and say it shook me to my core because, if I’m being honest, I shouldn’t have been shocked. The world of sports being male-dominated (and therefore male focused) shouldn’t have been the surprise it turned out to be which, again, is part of the problem. It also shouldn’t have surprised me because, just a couple weeks back, I was writing a similar story about two members of Canada’s national U18 hockey team who have local ties. At the time, I chalked up their history not being as prevalently codified as it should be to their youth, but now, I know it had more to do with their gender. Regardless of how I stumbled on it, the fact remains that this is a problem. We need to pay the same amount of attention to skilled athletes, regardless of their gender, and, going forward, I hope to try to do that, at least in my own way. Denny Scott Denny’s Den THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2019. PAGE 5. That fact-checking life Before I began working for The Citizen, I worked for Rogers. During that time, I was the victim of an armed robbery at gunpoint as I attempted to open the store one morning. It was a frightening experience, but because I was able to disarm the would-be robber and contain him until the police arrived, I’ve had a confidence in myself ever since that I’d be able to handle an emergency, should one arise in my life ever again. You’ve just read that paragraph – now tell me if it’s true. Right now. True or false? If you were going to fact-check that statement, the first thing you’d need would be time. You’d need to speak with me, figure out what you believed and what you didn’t and then maybe conduct further research; maybe speak with Rogers and/or the local police. Not so easy to do in real time, is it? However, there is a surprisingly high demand for fact-checking in today’s world thanks to a number of factors and, frankly, it’s just not possible to pull off without time and resources. U.S. President Donald Trump’s bloated state of the union speech last week gave way to dozens of fact-checking articles the following morning, one of which was written by Daniel Dale, who has become one of the preeminent Trump fact-checkers in the world. However, just a few weeks before that speech, Trump addressed the nation several times in the midst of the government shutdown and his never-ending push for a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. It was in the lead-up to that address that people on Twitter (take that with the grain of salt it deserves) were pushing for real-time speech fact-checking, given Trump’s robust reputation for dishonesty. Dale is good, but he’s not that good. No one really is. Unless you happen to be fact- checking something you know very well off the top of your head, you need time to research and confirm. The lack of that process is what got us into this mess in the first place. Fact-checking a speech as it’s coming out of someone’s mouth is simply an unrealistic expectation of a journalist. Because of today’s frenzy of social media reporting, we already have reporters reporting something as it’s coming out of someone’s mouth. With no time to fact-check, research or follow-up, many reporters are hardly even reporting – they’re pounding out unfiltered, unchallenged quotes to the masses 280 characters at a time. Reporters who have to operate like that, robotically Tweeting out-of-context quotes to their followers, are far from telling a well- crafted, narrative story, but this urgency of information is what is demanded on Twitter. And then it’s those same people on Twitter who will be the first to jump on a reporter for getting something wrong. Reporters in this day and age are being held to a higher standard than ever and being handed impossible operating conditions in which to be perfect. So, if you can’t tell me which parts of my first paragraph are true (if any) and which parts are false (if any) in a matter of seconds, don’t expect reporters to either. Donald Trump has lied and manipulated his way to the highest office in the world. That should tell you that he’s good at it. He’s strung together a narrative that, at this point, probably confuses him at times. To deconstruct that carefully-woven story takes resources and smarts, but, most importantly, it takes time. If people are lying or purposely spreading misinformation, people like us need time to figure that out. We’re not smart enough to do it on the spot, as much as we wish we were.