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The Rural Voice, 2005-09, Page 8"Our experience assures lower cost water wells" 105 YEARS' EXPERIENCE Member of Canadian and Ontario Water Well Associations • Farm • Industrial • Suburban • Municipal Licensed by the Ministry of the Environment DAVIDSON WELL DRILLING LTD. WINGHAM Serving Ontario Since 1900 519-357-1960 WINGHAM 519-664-1424 WATERLOO DRAINA E Specializing in: * Plastic Tile Installation Backhoe & Dozer Service Septic System Installation Traditional & Alternative Systems! For Quality, Experience, & Service, call: Jayne ©o©Ic plop op 236 ©7390 R.R. #2 Zurich, Ont. NOM 2T0 PARKER ®PARKER L 1 M I T E www.hay.neti-drainage 4 THE RURAL VOICE Keith Roulston Frivolities celebrated, essentials ignored Keith Roulston is editor and publisher of The Rural Voice. He lives near Bluth, ON. It's more than 35 years since I became a journalist and sometimes I feel old. It's not just the years that have passed that age me. it's the growing sense that most of the power of the media is focussed on things that don't matter much, while things that do matter get scant attention. I suppose the problem is that the' media are in the news businesses — as in "new" -s. By definition. something new is interesting while something old, though it might be quite vital. is of little interest. Because what's new is important, the media becomes something like the fashion industry. always chasing after the latest trend and abandoning something that may have been quite suitable but is no longer fashionable. So our media are filled with the latest shenanigans of politicians in Ottawa or Queen's Park, the stars of the latest reality TV series or the romance, or subsequent break-up, of some celebrity couple. Meanwhile things that really matter, the very foundation of life, go unnoticed. Every day billions of trees and plants absorb the sun's power to create energy for mankind. The only talk of energy in the media, however, will be a boost in gas prices, concerns over the security of oil supplies in the Middle East, or the rise in stock prices of some energy company. Rain is essential for the very existence of mankind yet rain won't make the news unless there's so much of it that homes are flooded or a sports team has its game rained out. We need air to survive but in our modern society, with its priorities set by the media, driving a car (and the right car at that) is more important ' than thinking about our need for air so our air is ignored until it is so polluted that it makes the news. Farmers, who for millenniums have been creating our food by making use of those essentials for life of rain, oxygen, earth and sunlight are, of course, by definition not new and newsworthy these days. A BSE crisis or drought might thrust food producers into the spotlight temporar- ily but even that will be about farmers' fear for survival which has been covered so often it doesn't seem like news anymore to city reporters. What's new is the latest food personality on television, the hot new restaurant or the celebrity chef. These will get far more attention from the media than the production of the food these people need to ply their trade. A sheep that's been cloned or someone growing a new fruit previously imported from the southern hemisphere might be newsworthy. Tending Holsteins day in and day out to produce the milk that makes a fancy, trendy cheese, or growing corn or soybeans are not — even if without that work people would make news by starving. So short-term is the thinking of a fashion -obsessed media that things that might be good for the basics of life are often regarded as bad news. High gasoline prices, for instance, that may improve our lives because they discourage wasting fossil fuels that pollute the air we need for breathing, are reported as a crisis to our way of life. Realistically, there's not going to be a front page story in the Toronto Star every time it rains or reality shows on major networks about feeding the pigs anymore than there will be shows about working on an assembly line at the Ford plant. Still, 1 can't help thinking the media is missing an opportunity to create real understanding about life. All the media are like television which, critics have complained, has used its ability to be the greatest educational tool to instead become a purveyor of time -wasting, vapid entertainment. My profession could be great teachers with thousands of students but too often we miss our opportunities by getting caught up in fashionable stories.0