You might expect someone describing social networking as “the biggest shift since the industrial revolution” would be someone involved in technology… and not farming. Jane King, editor of Farmers Weekly described the relevance of social networking and media in her industry in her talk at the University of Lincoln.
“Even my 72-year-old mother is on Facebook, it’s capturing people’s imagination … we have to recognise that [social media] in farming. We have to be a part of that revolution,” she said.
In her talk, part of the “Journalists speak out on Journalism” series, “Farming: the industry the media too often forget”, King explored several topics relative to both farming and the media industry. These included farming’s potential role in the global food crisis; climate change and increasing food prices.
Expanding on the importance of the internet she spoke of how an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease was spread on forums firstly, with the large news chanels playing catch up.
King remarked that “farming is rarely good news”, and mentioned tabloid’s misrepresentation of the industry, “Frankenstein food”.
Commenting on the representation of farming issues by the mainstream she said: “We’ve got to articulate, much more clearly, about what the realities are; instead of letting the press mis-educate the public”.