Editor’s Note: University of Florida horticulturist Kevin Folta addresses the latest journalist attack on biotechnology and agriculture.
In last week’s New York Times [“Scientists Loved and Loathed by an Agrochemical Giant“], reporter Danny Hakim once again provides a political cherry picking that strives to harm public perception of science. Hakim is part of a cadre of journalists that clearly have personal disdain for conventional farming, particularly if it is supported by technologies from biotech seed companies.
His series in the New York Times is called Uncertain Harvest, an ironic term seeing as though food security in this country and around the world has never been better. Thanks to improvements in genetics and production techniques, the harvest has never been more certain.
…journalists like Hakim attain a visible venue in a place like the New York Times that grants them presumptive authority to report news that isn’t news at all, but instead are veiled political statements.
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In the past, activist organizations like USRTK, financed by aggressive anti-biotech NGOs and corporations, provided cherry-picked stories to reporters like Eric Lipton.
This is about one thing– destroying trust.
USRTK (funded by aggressive anti-biotech interests) writer Carey Gillam uses Hakim’s analysis of two researchers interactions with industry to paint the entire research community as untrustworthy.
This is the job of a new flavor of yellow journalism. It is to portray public servants as dupes of corporate interests and convince the public that science can’t be trusted.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Journalistic Merchants of Doubt Seek to Destroy Trust in Science
