Rural Press has once again been caught out churning out media releases as if they were real journalism.
Agmates - a trading and news site founded by Steve Truman because of frustration about the “multi-national $14.5 billion dollar Fairfax Media / Rural Press strangle hold over what rural & regional people read & see” has pinged Queensland Country Life for reprinting word-for-word spin from the Meat and Livestock Corporation as though it were genuine journalism.
Agmates says the resulting “article” is really quite misleading, leaving a “warm and fuzzy feeling” about how marketing dollares are being spent, when the truth is that Aussie Beef sales are slumping in the face of US competition.
Read the Agmates post, and the comments, to get an idea of the rural fury about Rural Press.
I rang Queensland Country Life this morning to get some comment, but was told that nobody from editorial will be in until Monday. I’ve left my phone number and email, and If I get any response, I will post it here.
The Agmates site points out that this is not a first offence. The ABC Media Watch program gave Queensland Country Life a shellacking for exactly the same sort of thing last October.
Now, for context, it should be remembered that Agmates is in competition with Rural Press. In fact it represents exactly the kind of new media competition that Rural Press has cause to fear. In the United States, citizen led “hyperlocal” journalism is emerging as a competitor to media organisations that have promised little and delivered less to regional audiences. Remember that Rural Press gave the need to get competitive online as one of the reasons for the merger with Fairfax all those months ago – since when Rural has put a lot of work into its online presence.
Truman claims that Rural Press refused to take advertising from Agmates, but that nevertheless word of mouth saw him collect 4300 subscribers in 12 months. Those behind the site include Liberal Party figure Bruce Flegg and Cattlemen’s Union identity John Carter. I’ve asked Truman for his current audience figures. [UPDATE: See Steve Truman's comment below for a correction of this point. These people have written for the site, they are not "behind" it. Also see Steve's comment for more up to date audience figures.]
Fairfax/Rural Press say a great deal about quality journalism being the thing that will distinguish them from Citizen journalists and bloggers. This doesn’t appear to bode well.
6 Comments
G’day Margaret,
I was just in the middle of replying to your email, but see that I’ve missed your deadline. So I’ll respond here.
Agmates is an online rural & regional community, in fact Australia’s largest. At Agmates we are 100% biased toward anything that is good for rural & regional communities. We make no apologies for that.
Your article is correct in most instances. You are exactly right in saying that Agmates is in direct competition to Rural Press. We are to rural and regional Australia what Crikey is to the Urban Mainstream media. Agmates was founded because we were sick of the bias and manipulation of rural & regional news by the commercially driven rural press. The Agmates article that you have sighted above is part evidence of what the problem is.
Agmates started as a simple blog 2 years ago with no readers. Today we have over 10,000 registered members in Australia and just over 3,000 members in other countries with the USA being our second largest market, the UK our 3rd, Canada 4th and New Zealand our 5th.
As you correctly mention our growth has been entirely by word of mouth. We advertised for 3 weeks in the rural press publications The Queensland Country life and the Land before I received a phone call from QCL General Manager John Warlters who advised me that Agmates had been black banned by Rural Press across Australia.
John’s advice was that they saw us as competition and that they had taken a commercial decision not to take our advertising. At the time our membership was just over 1,000. It does not have appeared to have hindered our growth and has probably saved us a lot of money in wasted advertising.
Finally let me clarrify the issue of who is behind Agmates.
It would indeed come as a surprise to Dr Bruce Flegg and NSW Cattle Producer John Carter that they are ‘behind the site’. You have based that on the fact that both have written articles for Agmates. That is their only association with the site. If that is what you base your opinion on than you would also have to include the following people who also write articles for Agmates.
Senator Barnaby Joyce, Senator Ron Boswell, Senator Nick Xenophon, Senator Steve Fielding, GM Commentator David Tribe of Monash Uni, USA Cattleman Joel Gill, Economist Tim Curtain, Environment Activist Syd Walker, Journalist John Mikkelsen and dozens of farmers across Australia and the USA.
Agmates is an independent media owned by myself and a number of others (mostly farmers) across Australia. We have no political affiliations, no corporate backing, our ethos is that we are 100% biased toward rural & regional communities and we make no apology for that.
We support any organization or political party / politician be it Labor, Liberal, Green, National or independent who stands up for rural and regional communities.
In fact I make no secret of the fact that I voted Labor at the last federal election.
Thanks for your interest and coverage. If you wish you can join us in the Agmates community here http://www.agmates.com/register.php
It’s free to join and become a subscriber to our regular emails.
Happy New year,
Your Agmate – Steve Truman
Agmates Founder
…and another declaration there Marg, Truman (how Orwellian is that name, or maybe via Jim Carey?) also has a listed blog on crikey.com.au. Such is the foodchain and ‘media ecology’ of the alternative online media.
Truman took issue with my assessment of his publication about a year back on the issue of land clearing:
http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1698938/steve-truman-of-agmates-of-gympie-qld-the-2nd-hand-farm-machinery-seller-who-likes-land-clearing/
As he says he is “totally biased” and I would likely agree with that with another angle. No wonder Joyce and Boswell and Fielding – rednecks all – contribute. As for the others – who knows. Certainly my old colleague Syd Walker (former executive officer of NSW Nature Conservation Council, now FNQ based) has taken a lurch to the right on some geopolitical issues that would fit right in with such as Mr Bidwell MP’s views too – if you take my meaning. But Syd would come at the apologia for land clearing from Agmates. This might be to Truman’s credit to keep the nuance, don’t get me wrong.
And in the declaration of interest stakes – he takes advertising for farm machinery which depends on more landclearing.
Having said all that I’m impressed with his circulation and reach and presence in rural media sector. Obviously he’s a real player, just as Pauline Hanson was (?), and maybe a force for democracy in that variable sector of society. True enough, or at least I’ve heard that, on the polling booth the grassroots National voters end up talking to the Greens as the only others with a common language about natural resources compared to the Libs and Labs.
And there is no doubt Truman can hold a conversation. On a more subtextual note even Jim Carey discovered the end of his reality after reaching the (false) horizon in a boat:
The sea is rising I say. Meaning the sooty particulates from China and India’s hyper economic growth of the last 5 years have been masking the global warming embedded in the climate (ie enhanced global dimming), and the GFC means alot less air pollution into the global commons and thus removal of this global dimming effect.
2008 might have been a plateau in rising temperatures, still highest on record pre 1993, but methinks only a respite.
Err, to say Syd Walker would NOT come at Agmates support for landclearing via rejection of a role for the state intervening in private property rights.
Hello to all. My first post on Crikey. What a funny name for a website
I felt compelled to register and get stuck in because I see my name taken in vain.
First, hi to Steve at Agmates. You have my respect, Steve, because while we probably disagree about lots, we seem to agree about some things – and you have the decency and guts to allow other people to present a different point of view and debate openly. If Agmates is doing well, I suggest that may have something to do with it. The more media diversity in this country the better!
Hi again Tom. You seem to think you know what I think – better than I do. It’s flattering, I guess, but can I take issue with what I apparently am supposed to believe?
Having recently enjoyed a celebratory mug of mango juice on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, I’m a little puzzled by your comment that I’ve ‘moved to the right’ What on earth are you talking about? And no, I don’t take your meaning about Mr Bidwell. Actually, I have no idea what you’re on about. Why not send me an email?
I don’t think I’m up for debating land clearing tonight. Too bothered about the slaughter in Gaza. Where I’m sitting, it’s pissing down rain and the frogs are croaking in chorus. There’s wet greenery everywhere.
Deforestation? What deforestation? Are you sure?
Well Syd, you are a truther regarding 9/11 as you proudly state on your blog, so yes it might be you are so to the Left you have arrived back to back with the Right on what has been regarded as conspiracy theory.
And you did tear strips off me last week for failing to quite utterly and completely condemn Israel while I have published about their ‘ruthless blockade’ and conduct of ‘an open air prison’ like a latter day ‘Warsaw Ghetto’.
No these were not strong enough critique for you. But you have your platform on Truman’s site and you write very well, much better sub editing than my earnest attempts.
As to ALP Qld federal MP Bidwell this was not a flattering comparison: He made some very goosey comments about biblical “end of days” broadcast on the mainstream tv media in early December after daring to act like a citizen journo with pics of the Aminov stateless people in Canberra, cramping the style of said big media.
So I assume Truman in ‘true’ form ran tattle tale to tip you off about my reference to you and challenge? He is a serious machine type operator – no doubt. Smooth as.
Let the reader judge.
Hey Tom, Syd. Not sure anyone else is interested in what’s obviously a pre-existing dispute between you two…and you both have your own forums….
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