I don’t always agree with farmers who give me a call. That’s OK. In fact, it’s exactly what I need and want. What irritates me though is when I don’t get to hear your thoughts in the first place. I print my contact details at the end of every column. Please use them to give me a blast or to tell me what we got right. But when you do call, please make sure you leave your name and number so I can hear them, and let me know when to call you back, especially if you don’t have voicemail.
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Too many times recently readers have called who I haven’t been able to recontact.
Remember that I’m human too. If you don’t hear back from me, it isn’t that I don’t want to talk to you. It’s that I lost the note I made to myself. I think this is rare, but if it happens, don’t hesitate to give me another call. I do want to hear from you.
By the way, many farmers email, which works well too.
As I say, I do want to hear from you. I can’t believe, for instance, that you don’t have a view about John Baker in this issue saying that if you’re over 65 and you’re still on the farm, you’re hurting farmers everywhere. Or Carl Moore saying that if you have set up a farm corporation, “it’s just a five-gallon gasoline tank waiting for a match.”
This is also a good time to repeat our editorial promises to you. You depend on getting straight facts, from us and from others. So here are four things we think you should know about us.
First, we don’t sell editorial space in Country Guide. We never tell advertisers that if they buy a page of advertising, we’ll write an article for them. That means never.
Second, we don’t allow ghost writing. Every article in every issue is bylined. Sometimes we’ll ask a company person or a consultant to write a column on topics that can range from tax planning to field management, but our promise is that you will always know who wrote what, and you’ll be able to make up your own mind on whether their advice is credible.
Third, advertisers and company sources never get a chance to screen or revise the stories we write. Again, that means never. On highly technical stories, we may ask government or university scientists to check our details, and we think this is a move you would approve. As well, if you’re a farmer and we interview you for an article about your farm, we will show you a draft copy and ask you if we got it right. Again, we think readers would approve this. But there’s no way that BASF, for instance, saw the story in this issue before you did. It’s an ironclad promise.
Fourth, we don’t accept expensive favours from companies. Yes, if we get together for lunch, they may pick up the tab one time (and we’ll pick it up the next) but we don’t accept free flights or free hotel rooms, and there’s no way we ever accept free product of any kind.
Are we getting it right? Tell me loud and clear. I’m at [email protected],or you can reach me by phone at 519-674-1449.
