Virtual Expert: Andrew Burchette

Andrew Burchette of Farm Journal magazine won first place in the Issues category in the 2004 AAEA Writing Awards Program.

I'm flattered to be called a "virtual expert." I enjoy being an editor for Farm Journal. This job lets me explore and satisfy my curiosity about many things. Winning an AAEA award for "Biotech Divide" is an honor.

The planning stage: Please give some background on why you chose the story topic that won your award. What gave you the idea for that topic? What were your goals when you began to plan the story?

I chose to write "Biotech Divide," because I wanted to address the economic fundamentals of adoption patterns for biotech corn in the U.S. Just the word "economics" makes most people yawn, so the challenge was to bring economic realities to life in terms our readers can appreciate.

My idea came from analyzing the numbers in the USDA prospective plantings and acreage reports for the last few years. The pattern showed that, depending on where you farmed, you might be farming corn with new biotechnology or your technology choices might be stuck in the '80s and early '90s, a seeming disadvantage. The technology adoption patterns were widening each year.

The fact gathering stage: How did you choose the people to interview for your story? What were your primary sources of information? Did you use the Web? How and where did you conduct interviews? Did you do the interviews face-to-face, phone, or email, and which is best? How did you get information and good quotes from your sources? How did you determine whom to interview, and when did you know that you had done enough interviewing/researching?

To bring the numbers to life, I needed real farmers taking opposite positions on the economic and agronomic benefits of biotech. Central Illinois was a good place to look, because it's a big corn-producing area where there are many cutting-edge farmers who embrace new technology. I was sure to find demand for any promising new technology, including new biotech traits.

At the same time, I knew there was a virtual picket line encouraged by major corn processors in central Illinois that told farmers to avoid biotechnology. Any time you have a community effort to make a stand, everybody knows all about the guy who bucks the trend. I simply called a farmer acquaintance in the area and asked who that was. He told me. When I talked to that guy, I asked him if he had any neighbors upset with him for planting biotech corn. There was one who was particularly upset, so I tracked him down, too. Each had a compelling story to tell from an opposite point of view.

I did the interviews face-to-face and took the photos. That's always best, because people will open up and tell you things in a personal visit they will never share with a stranger over the phone. I generally trust farmers, but interviewing on their farms and in their fields is a great way to ground-truth the things they say.

Follow-up phone interviews gave me everything I needed. Where I came up short was getting statements from elevators and grain companies. Here is where a little secondary sleuthing came in handy. The closest elevator to the two farmers I interviewed had sent a letter to its customers signed by the manager. The letters said farmers could be sued for planting certain biotech traits and that farmers should seek restitution from seed companies that sold them a legal product. It appears that the elevator was trying to use fear of economic loss and resentment against seed companies to make farmers resist legal technology.

The same elevator listed itself on a Web data base as accepting the corn it said it would reject in the letter -- possibly an honest mistake -- but another interesting twist in the story.

I gathered more information from several industry sources and the USDA acreage numbers to add national perspective, but the story was essentially done once I had statements from the farmers.

The writing stage: Why or how did you choose the story lead? Did you outline the story or organize the general flow ahead of time, before you began to write? What writing style did you choose, and why? How many re-writes did you do? How did you choose sidebar stories? Did you have an editor or colleague review your story, offer suggestions, look for holes in your reporting? How do you check facts?

As I research a story, I'm constantly thinking of headlines, leads and visual elements. The story lead borrows the language of geologic upheaval. I chose that because I see biotechnology as a major economic and agronomic force in the history of farming -- much as the formation of mountains in geologic history is, quite-literally, a water-shed event.

I chose a narrative writing style that used the news peg of Monsanto's introduction of rootworm-resistant corn and set the stage for the local conflict at the root of the national patterns. The narrative tried to help the reader understand the national magnitude of the story, then zoomed in on a specific location and conflict. Once I established the macro to micro range of the story with the reader, it was free to meander within those bounds, exploring local and national perspectives.

I used a sidebar, graphic and table. The informational graphic depicted the geographic relationship between biotech corn adoption and wet mill processors. The table gave farmers take-home information on which traits were approved in Europe and the sidebar shared biotech company statements about the economic value of their products.

A rough outline and free-writing helped me frame and flesh out the story. I rewrote parts of it a few times and two editors, a copy fitter, artist and a proofreader helped produce the finished product.

Facts were checked by sending checking copy to sources and triple-checking numbers with document sources.

How did you begin your career? What advice do you have for those just graduating in ag comm? What does it mean to be a member of AAEA? How do you maintain a high standard of ethics in your writing and your career?

I began by career by earning a degree in English literature from the University of Missouri. After that, I worked on a temporary basis for Farm Journal. Next, I free-lanced and was a technical writer for a construction equipment company and then returned to work for Farm Journal full time.

My advice to those graduating with degrees in ag communications or any degree is to seek a broad range of opportunities. Get a job, build your experience and pay bills. Don't wait too long for the job that you think best matches your degree. You will succeed if you make yourself useful to an employer or customer. Waiting for the job that matches the expectations you had as a student can be a mistake that poisons your attitude if the job doesn't materialize.

AAEA is a forum for networking, sharing ideas and competing in contests.

Ethics are maintained by remembering who your customer is. Mine is the farmer who reads my story. The virtue I protect is my editorial judgment. It's not perfect, but it must be honest. Many people, including advertisers, want to influence that judgment. In many cases, I have to work with them to get information for stories. But no matter how nice they are or how much I like them, I must keep them at an arm's length. They are doing a good job by clearly representing their interests. For them to do otherwise would be unethical in their profession. But my allegiance is to the reader. If, as a journalist, you find yourself crafting a story to serve anyone but the reader, it's time to do a little soul-searching to make sure you still have one.

Any other advice for young people considering a career in ag communications?

Glad you asked. Three things come to mind.

The first one is to get a calculator. Do the math on the price and performance of every product and technology you write about. Understand production costs, currency, subsidies and commodity markets. Look at numbers in reports. Compare them, do the math, ask for more details when people cite statistics to support their cause. Too many times, people who settle on a career in journalism or communications do so -- at least in part -- to escape math. I'm no whiz at math, but I'm constantly amazed at how otherwise good journalists take numbers from sources without checking them. The results are laughable, but spell trouble for the authors. If your audience includes farmers or other business people, one of the fastest ways you can lose credibility in their eyes is to boldly report mathematical impossibilities. It's their money you're talking about, so get it right.

The second thing is to seek the untold story. People who speak up publicly, seek you out, say the most quotable things and generally draw attention don't have a monopoly on good information or good stories. As a journalist, researcher or anyone who gathers information, you may find a lot of people trying to feed you content that supports their ideas. Take it, but always consider the source and always do some original reporting. In every story or report, try to include at least a few facts you are sure no one else caught. It's hard to get a true exclusive. But over time, readers will begin to notice if you always offer at least some information they can't get elsewhere. This comes from talking to those who don't normally speak up, examining company financial statements, getting your hands on documents, finding people who disagree and otherwise turning over rocks. It's very liberating to realize that you don't always have to race after all the same sources as your competitors and end up writing the same story.

Thirdly, if you are a writer, get over yourself. Words are commodities -- just check your e-mail inbox. Everyone offers words. You must add value to this commodity. This means you have to have photos, graphics and layouts that bring the reader to your gray matter on the page. Become skilled at photography and learn how to work closely with editors, photographers, artists and designers. Don't take them for granted. Treat them as equals in the story-telling process, because they are the agents who will sell your story to the reader. When it comes to pulling in readers for your precious words, they are probably more important than you. If you treat them like lackeys, they won't do a good job for you and you will fail. Buy them lunch once in a while and compliment them when they do a good job. Turn in your stories on time so they get a chance to do a good job. In fact, if you expect the story will need special artistic attention, start talking with the artists, photographers and layout designers as soon as you know you will write it.

The illustrations and photo layout used in "Biotech Divide" were conceived BEFORE the first draft was submitted. I don't believe the layout would have placed in a design contest, but it was custom-made for the story. I was the photographer and I took the typical photos of guys standing in their field -- but compensated for this fact before I even took the photos. I knew I probably couldn't dream up any new photographic angle that hadn't already been used a thousand times, so I didn't try. I just coordinated my efforts with the artist. The same text dumped into a ho-hum layout at the last minute without extra illustration and layout support probably wouldn't have won. Further, the illustration made the cover of the magazine, which probably increased readership three-fold. Once again, it was an artist that pushed it to readers, not award-winning prose and reporting.