Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 178 Document Number: C35782
Notes:
"The Farm Journalist"series via online. 3 pages., Examines problems facing the agricultural press and the publishers, editors and journalists working in it.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 148 Document Number: C23740
Notes:
Via The Hoot, Media South Asia. 10 pages., "Have district editions created a public sphere? Or have they merely created a daily bulletin board which people read to see if their names are mentioned?"
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 148 Document Number: C23741
Notes:
Via The Hoot, Media South Asia. 9 pages., "The indiscriminate nature of local news does not encourage purposeful reporting on the development needs of local areas, and their populations."
Posted at http://www.agrimarketing.com, Features Meredith Corporation, which has roots in agricultural publishing and recently was named Publisher of the Year by Ad Age magazine.
Describes how Cyrus Curtis bought Country Gentleman magazine in 1911 and it became "the dominant farm publication of the 1920s." The magazine "took the nineteenth-century symbol of the yeoman farmer and recast it in terms of consumption. In doing so, it created an idealistic image of a new class of consumers, an image that urban advertisers easily understood and willingly bought." CG had 2.4 million subscribers when it was sold to Farm Journal and Town Journal in 1955.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 144 Document Number: C22545
Notes:
Published in a column, "The Final Word," from Food Routes Network, Millheim, Pennsylvania. Issue 45. 2 pages., Author reports on consolidation of farm periodicals, with resulting cutbacks in editorial staffing and in local coverage. Describes financial pressures that lead to more use of free-lance writers that often write for ag publications and ag public relations agencies simultaneously. "But the divided loyalties often yield stories that resemble corporate press releases more than journalism." Cites an example from his experience as a free-lance writer.
Cites journalism educator Don Ranley who urges maintaining the wall between editorial and advertising, in the interest of reader credibility. "I am not a businessman, but it has to be good business to be trusted."
