Wednesday morning while I was driving to work I was jamming out to my favorite country radio station. Unfortunately, as usually happens in the early morning, the station had its morning program going and the radio hosts started talking once the song was over. Normally, I change to the next station right away, but the conversation related to an event the station was doing with what I thought was a local farmer’s market.
I was absolutely appalled when the radio host started encouraging listeners to come to the event where they could purchase organic, non-GMO food – you know, the food that is actually good for your family! He said that this was the type of food that you could feel good about feeding your family and, apparently, purchasing all this healthy stuff won’t break the bank at this particular shopping place. As I later learned, the event was actually taking place at a new grocery store that seems similar to Whole Foods.
It was quite a way to start the morning! I really couldn’t believe the things said by this radio host. He plays country music, catering to a largely rural state, and he was going to throw all those conventional farmers under the bus with misinformation…. just so he could promote his event?! I couldn’t help myself – as soon as I got to my desk and my computer, I had to write a comment on the radio station’s Facebook wall to express my disappointment.
I all but forgot about the comment until later in the afternoon. I thought it was a bit odd that I hadn’t gotten any likes or responses on it. So, I checked to see the post. It wasn’t there. The station deleted my comment on their wall.
Come on now! Your radio host just insinuated that the food my family grows isn’t healthy, safe, or nutritious. He just told people that they need to spend extra money purchasing organic, non-GMO foods because that’s the best food to feed their families. He just repeated the lie that organic food is more nutritious than conventional food. He just insulted the vast majority of farmers in the radio station’s audience.
And you’re going to delete my comment?! Maybe an apology or a clarification would have been the better approach!
No worries though. I’m a persistent little farmer’s daughter. I found a post the radio station had recently made on Facebook to promote the event and left my comment again. This time, in addition to sharing my original frustrations, I made sure to let them know how disappointed I was that they deleted my original comment.
This time the comment got several likes and (so far) the radio station has left it on their page. Of course, I haven’t received any type of apology or clarification by them. I don’t really expect one, but if your radio host is going to make such uninformed and incorrect statements, you should at least allow your listeners to respond and say something.
Look, I understand that the station was probably being paid by the grocery store to support their grand opening. I realize that the radio host was just repeating information that he was probably told to say. But I wish that they understood repeating this bad information, even to promote an event, is harmful to farmers and consumers. I don’t mean to crucify him or throw him to the wolves. Unfortunately, the information was still wrong, it was still misleading, and it was still insulting to the vast majority of farmers in the listening area.
At the very least, those farmers deserved someone to let the radio station know what they were promoting was wrong.
There’s no way my comment can reach all of the radio listeners that the host’s misinformed statements reached, but hopefully it reached some people. More importantly, I hope the radio station will think twice about how they are promoting their events in the future. Even better, they won’t partner with companies that are spreading false and misleading information.
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If not ridiculously expensive. Perhaps a few could chip in for a “truth ad” to counter the bunk. In lieu of that perhaps a letter similar to the comment hand delivered to both the store and station managers and signed by neighboring farmers.