The Rolling Stone article “Why is China Treating North Carolina like the Developing World?” is filled with unchecked facts, false claims, and exaggerated descriptions. After trudging through inaccuracy after inaccuracy, you come to the final line which says:This story was published in partnership with the UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship.What does that mean? Upon some research, we found the entire story was funded by a foundation with an agenda that focuses on what they call “ending industrialized animal agriculture.”This raises a serious question: can journalism be bought?The UC-Berkley 11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship is supported by a grant from the Schmidt Family Foundation.The program offers ten $10,000 fellowships to journalists with the stipulation that they “report ambitious long form print” on a subject in the food system. Fellows must also attend a workshop in June and December where editors will help them refine and shape their stories.Workshops. Editors. All funded by an organization that's against modern agriculture. An organization that gives grants to the likes of EWG who with Waterkeeper Alliance published “Exposing Fields of Filth: Landmark Report Maps Feces-Laden Hog and Chicken Operations in North Carolina.”What story was published in partnership with this fellowship? The Rolling Stone piece.Needless to say, the Rolling Stone article had an agenda. The agenda was paid for by an organization with a goal to end modern pig farming.You expect journalists to check the facts. You expect them to present the full story. You expect them to follow some sort of code of ethics. Apparently, the bar is much too high for Rolling Stone.Can journalism be bought? In this case, it would seem so.
An Odd Vision
The Schmidt Foundation was founded by a Silicon Valley billionaire and his wife. Doug Bock Clark, who spent three years living with a tribe of ‘hunter-gatherers’ on an Indonesian island, is a young free-lance journalist. And Rolling Stone, for five decades, has been the herald of ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.’One wanted a story published knocking modern agriculture, one wanted a grant, one was happy to publish a story it got for free, and when their paths crossed it led to an odd headline: Why China is Treating North Carolina Like the Developing World?
And the answer to their question was: Hogs.Here’s how it happened: The Schmidt Foundation gave a grant to the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Journalism. UC-Berkeley then gave a grant to Clark.Clark, it appears, went on the internet, read all the stories he could find critical of hog farmers then had a revelation: China was out to get its hands on North Carolina’s hogs, and, to do that, it was treating North Carolina like a third world country.If Clark’s vision leaves you puzzled, when you look deeper it gets more puzzling.China raises more hogs than any nation on earth. It raises 96% of the pork its people eat. And imports just 4%. How much of China’s pork comes from North Carolina? Something like one-tenth of one percent. Germany sells more pork to China than America. And America sells more pork to Mexico than to China.Here’s another slip: Clark reported that Duplin County raises more hogs than any other county in the United States. But he was wrong. It doesn’t. How did a journalist with a grant from a wealthy foundation make a silly mistake like that?Clark described seeing six hog barns made of metal. But the barns he saw weren’t metal – they were made of wood. How could he mistake wood for metal?In one breath, Clark described a lady telling him she believed the odor from a hog farm near her home killed her nephew and, in another breath, he said the same nephew had died of cancer.He reported hog waste is “potentially lethal” and that “people die with distressing regularity in the waste.” And he reported that hog farming is a $2.9 billion industry that provides 46,000 jobs in North Carolina – but that led him to another odd conclusion: “The overall economic benefits of hog farming,” he said, “have actually been relatively small.”When their paths crossed the Schmidt Foundation, the journalist, and the rock ‘n’ roll magazine each got what they wanted. What did it lead to? They spun an odd tale then moved on and left everyone else to pick up the pieces.
One Farmer's Story
in News Article
Last summer, the Bladen Journal wrote a story about Hilton Monroe who, along with his wife, raises hogs on his sixty-six acre farm near Clarkton.The reporter described how he and Monroe drove down a dirt road that wound through a forest and stopped by two hog houses – then wrote:
Upon stepping out of the vehicle, the first thing one might notice is the absence of something – an aroma. There was no odor. Of any kind. None. “People think hog houses really, smell, and I’m not trying to paint a pretty picture or say they don’t because they do, but not nearly as much as people think,” Monroe said. Even standing on the shore of the lagoon while Monroe took a water sample – which he’s required to do every 120 days to check the nitrogen level – there was no observable odor. Monroe explained that the plastic curtains lining the hog houses serve multiple functions, one of which is to contain any odor pollution. “I’ve been farming all my life, and I’ve never had a complaint from my closest neighbors,” he said, adding that people have even built houses on the other side of the trees that line the whole operation.
Next the reporter asked Monroe about the state regulations hog farmers deal with – then wrote:
The water samples and the plastic curtains are just two items in a long list of regulations to which Monroe must adhere. The houses must remain around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (give or take, depending on the hog’s size), and the temperature must be recorded on charts. The lagoon can never top a certain height or contain too much nitrogen. Spraying can only be done when the temperature and humidity are just right, and never within four days of a hurricane. A certain amount of acreage must be sprayed for every hog. No steroids to make hogs grow faster. And on and on. “I think regulations are a good thing – I think we should have them, and other hog farmers I know feel the same way, and we do our best to abide by the regulations,” he added. “If you’re going to be a hog farmer, you have to take care of the environment.”
The article ends with a simple question – the reporter asked Monroe why he’s a farmer: “I’m just a drop in the bucket helping to feed the world,” Hilton said. “It makes me feel good to know somebody, somewhere has food because of what I do.”