ReNe: about an old article I wrote

We're currently watching a documentary, The Corporation, directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott, and it's a really powerful film. Starts off like a Business 101 course, from the basics, about the concept of a corporation, the huge role corporations play in our lives today, and rapidly moves onto facts about the corporate world that most of the public don't know or are misinformed about. For example, I hadn't realized that the 14th Amendment, put forth after the American Civil War originally to emancipate former black slaves, was also used to grant corporations status as a legal person, allowing them, among other privileges, to own things or buy property. So, in the eyes of the law, a corporation is the same as a person.

One part I found interestingly familiar. Two investigative Fox new journalists (Steve Wilson and Jane Akre) turned whistleblowers talked about how after they found that, quote, "a large share of America's milk supply has quietly become adulterated with the effects of a synthetic hormone (bovine growth hormone, or BGH) secretly injected into cows", they were pressured first by the Monsanto, which made the hormone, and then Fox TV, to 'drop' or 'edit' their report.

What was the particularly interestingly familiar part? When I was still writing articles for Asia-Pacific Biotech News, I once wrote a not-so-complimentary article about Monsanto, though nowhere as negative. One day, after reading short news articles on the good results of Monsanto seed trials in countries like Bangladesh and the Philippines, I thought to read the original research articles so as to be able to write a better article that didn't just lift from the original news source. Turned out, the results from the research articles were not so positive after all. In fact, I would summarize it as: no significant difference (between using Monsanto's GM seeds and using ordinary seeds) when all factors are considered. The crop yields from the GM seeds were higher in years or in places that had ample rainfall, good fertilization and high levels of sunlight, but were *lower* if the weather that year was drier or just not so favorable. High gain, but higher risk of crop failure. And weather is dreadfully unpredictable. So, all things considered, I wouldn't draw sweeping conclusions such as "GM seeds are better". But that's not to say that we should stop GM research; it was research like this that led to the Green Revolution and the GM seeds do return good results, albeit under a narrow range of conditions. BUT. What I did have an issue with was the way the big GM companies forced their products onto the farmers, who were basically given little or no choice in spending a lot of money on the GM seeds.

So I wrote up my article, which as I said, was more neutral than negative, though it was not positive. The editor read it, frowned, and said, "Monsanto is our magazine's biggest advertiser." Damn, forgot about that.

"And the magazine is barely keeping in the black." I knew that, because we was constantly reminded in every single meeting with the big boss.

"Sorry, cannot publish."

Sigh. I guess I should have expected it and not have wasted my time researching and writing it up, though it was informative to me at least. After that, I requested to change beats because of some principle called integrity, though I suppose it was a rather half-assed kind of integrity.