Manitoba Engineer Calls for Accountability in Scientific Journalism
Farmscape for May 23, 2002 (Episode 970) A Manitoba based Agricultural Engineer is calling for the creation of a special agency to discredit the misleading information purposely being circulated to sway public opinion against the livestock industry. Dennis Hodgkinson, with DGH Engineering, says one of the Livestock industry's most important challenges will be to do a better job of counteracting the shabby science that's swaying public opinion. He says we find case after case where people with seemingly appropriate credentials are publicly proclaiming deliberately misleading information about the risks of livestock production. Clip-Dennis Hodgkinson-DGH Engineering I think we need to take a more aggressive and a more proactive approach to discredit the people that are using half truths, incomplete information and in some cases absolute falsehood to create doubts. I believe that the industry needs to create an advocacy group or a special agency whose mission is to make people in the scientific and journalistic world accountable for the information that they're producing. I believe that collectively we need to create an advocate that has as its principle mission in life to lobby, cajole, counteract some of this information in the public media with an objective of making everyone accountable for responsible science and journalism in the public venue as it affects our livestock industry. Hodgkinson says, while the livestock industry has focused on presenting scientifically accurate information, it has done nothing to discredit those who present false or grossly misleading information. He says that's an acceptable strategy to a point but, in the long term, the battle to influence public opinion is being lost. For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane. *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council