this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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Finally watching the Four Corners piece on Woolworths and Coles, and nice to hear the farmer talking about how much of a hold both stores have on the farming community. I come from a farming (beef and bananas) family myself and I've seen first hand the damage they do by being the only option for farmers to sell their produce.
Also howling at the CEOs, they really don't give a single fuck, and they aren't even hiding it.
My old mans doing the whole "hobby farm" retirement things. I say retirement but he'll still be trying to install shit as they lower him into the ground. Anyway. So went to a lot of stock yards and stuff to buy his like 2 cows and 3 sheep or whatever. Said farmers were selling livestock below cost and in some cases animals who couldn't be sold were killed rather than continue to basically starve them, cause the cost of feed was soring.
As much as Woolies and Coles are to blame (and lets be VERY clear: They are!) Why were the media not calling this shit out?! Is it not the responsibility for journalists to investigate this shit? If "Cattle killed because cant be sold for next to nothing whilst Coles beef prices skyrocket" was the headline of the age, questions would be asked without the need for a royal bloody commission or whatever.
This is exactly the scenario described by John Steinbeck in Grapes of Wrath.
The accepted reason for modern poverty/need is the housing crisis. That is all the media talks about because that is what press releases are about.
The real stories are plummeting real wages, the giving away of our wealth to mining companies, the cost of education, the loss of employment rights, the destruction of the public service .
**The loss of good news reporting ( I miss you Ranald McDonald ) **
These losses have been decades in the making.
You make great points, and he's my favourite american author of all time.
I'll never forget finishing his novella "The Pearl".
Why the media are not calling this out - the main commercial media tv, web, newspapers have colesworth as a major advertiser. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. ABC is the only one that has the freedom to report on it, and unfortunately a lot of people don’t watch/read ABC so remain blissfully unaware.
Do they really not? I just assumed heaps more did after the whole anti-Murdoch pushback around the last 2 elections (US and Aus). But dont ask me what I'm basing that assumption off.
I don’t have any numbers either, just anecdotal. Guess it depends on the demographic. Lots of younger people don’t, and then there’s the subgroup that think it’s too intellectual or lefty or biased. I actually think it’s probably the most neutral we have, because it’s not at the mercy of commercial interests or a very politically powerful billionaire.
A lot of the problem with the media is that reader's don't seem to care. I have seen news articles about this issue, but if people aren't interested in reading them the media outlets are not going to put a lot of effort into continuing to follow the issue - and with online media outlets the norm they get very clear feedback about the issues that actually interest people.
People don't seem to care much about issues which don't directly effect them and unless a story is novel and entertaining they don't want to keep following it. If people in general put even a fraction of the time and energy into social justice issues as they do into things like following true crime stories, reality tv or Taylor Swift concerts the world would be a very different place.
I think it's more to do with the consumer is everyone, the farmer purchasing feed is not.
You're right in that it should be a huge discussion point, but at the end of the day everyone has to go shopping for groceries, so that's the story we're going to focus on.
The farming lobby has had no problem diverting attention away from farming practices that have been destroying the environment the past 100 years. iow, they know how to get a story across.
I think the exact problem here is that it's market gardeners who have problems with supermarkets and market gardeners are family businesses and have little power and voice.
The Weekly times runs articles like this, but mostly behind paywalls.