"We all want to connect ... and reading somebody's story is a way to do that."
Q&A with veteran agriculture reporter Karen Briere
One of the first things Karen Briere said to me when we started our interview last week was: “some people would not find me very interesting.”
I am not one of those people (and I doubt there are many).
With almost 40 years of experience as a journalist, about 30 of those with the Western Producer, she knows the Canadian agriculture industry better than most and has told the stories of so many of its various stakeholders.
She has also persevered in the journalism industry despite the tumultuous changes that have forced so many others out, winning awards for her reporting and receiving a Queen’s Jubilee medal last year for her contributions.
She so graciously answered all my (sometimes wandering) questions about the highs and lows of her career, the future of journalism and the future of ag policy with the wit and concise thought that you could only expect from a journalist. I was sad when our chat ended.
Here are some of the highlights from our conversation:
What has kept you in this job for so long?
I still like digging into things and stirring it up a little bit. I'm looking for the angle. That would be the main thing.
I really do like politics and policy. Those topics keep me interested.
You have to keep in mind, when I started, we still had the Wheat Board. We didn't have five-year federal provincial agreements on ag funding. I was around for all the three Prairie Wheat Pools and how they morphed into Viterra.
There's never a dull moment and no two days are the same.
Plus, the people are great. Even those who don't like me or who have problems with what I write, they're still interesting and challenging.
What have been the fundamental changes you've seen to the agriculture industry over your tenure?
On the ground would be the move to continuous cropping and no-till. Larger and larger farms, for sure. The changes in grain marketing, from the pools and many delivery points to what we have today, which is not very many, compared to then.
The move to federal and provincial agreements, which took away a lot of the fun in covering the tension in trying to come up with farm support programs. But at the same time, I think it has lent a bit of stability to that process. There's still always lots of talk about improving AgriStability or things like that and that's fair but I think it works well for farmers.
That's the policy side of it. The political side of that is a little bit different. Some would have you believe that, depending on which party is in power, nothing's good or everything's great. It doesn't really work that way.
More recently, we've been talking about climate change for a long time. But we've really gotten into carbon sequestration and methane, all those things that really dominate the policy agenda now, for sure.
What do you think will continue to be the main issues for farmers for the next 10-20 years?
That's where the politics comes in. If the Conservatives won the next election, I don’t know what they would do with all this. Some people think nothing would change, that there would still be the carbon tax and this move to carbon sequestration and the whole fertilizer/nitrogen debate.
I think we’re quite a way down the road in in that already, and I think farmers generally know they have to watch their practices and use management practices. They know that. They don't like being told to do it. But I think that we'll continue to look for ways to be greener. … different electricity sources, things like that.
In terms of on-farm, some would say, ‘what more can we do?’ Clearly, they're not making any more land, so intensification has to continue if we're going to keep producing.
You have seen so much change in the media industry over your time, like the move to digital, cutbacks and layoffs, a lack of funding and lack of resources. What will happen in the future?
I’d like to think there's a spot for good journalism still. And there is still fantastic work being done … it's being done by fewer and fewer people with dwindling budgets.
We need young journalists. A lot of us are on our way out. But how could you tell somebody to go into journalism when there's very little money, especially to do investigative work and things like that? I do worry.
At the same time, I think we're going to hit a point – I wouldn't call it rock bottom – but there's going to be a point that has to tip the scales back into people realizing that just because Joe Blow on Facebook said this, it doesn't mean it's true, or news.
It'll be interesting to see what happens in the States, because Donald Trump did a great disservice to media and journalists everywhere. And if he is re-elected, that's a real red flag because he carries a lot of weight.
I think mostly, we'll be going more to digital. I think that's inevitable, just with the cost of putting out products. Although, it's interesting. Our newspapers, in general, are getting smaller, but then you see a lot of specialty publications, or companies that put out publications that do quite well. So maybe just more specialized journalism, which would be what I guess I’m in. Just more targeted to certain areas.
Do you think we'll get to a point where people will pay for digital news?
I will pay for a subscription for something but then there are other things I look at and think, ‘why would I pay for that?’ So I guess that's something that people will have to weigh in their own minds.
There are publications behind paywalls that seem to be doing OK, so why aren’t we all doing that? I don’t know the answer. Except that maybe there are enough of us older folks who still want to be holding a paper. We're just not there yet, in terms of everybody going digital. How many people say it's so hard to read online? And yet others, that's all they know.
I think of myself like with the Leader Post. They went to the Monday digital-only and I hardly ever look at it. But my paper copies of the other issues, I look at.
Do you have a favourite interview or story you've written?
We used to do weekly “On The Farm” features. You’d go to a farm and do a story. Just a farm family. You don’t have to be doing anything innovative, unique, wild, crazy, any of that stuff.
So many families welcomed me into their homes. I met so many great people that way. Then you’d run into them at a farm show or something and it's almost like you're an old friend. Those would probably be my favourites.
Have you had any very terrible interviews
Sometimes you're just unprepared … something comes up and you’ve got to do an interview right away. And it's like, I don't know what I'm talking about.
I had a person say to me, ‘why are you asking me that? You're an ag reporter, you should already know that.’ No, I'm a reporter first, an ag reporter second. I didn't grow up on a farm. We have a farm, but we lived in town. I’m a rural person.
Sometimes people become really combative and you're just trying to do your job.
During COVID I got a lot of hate mail … emails, texts, Twitter – or now ‘X’ – messages, comments … about specific stories I wrote during that time. And some were quite rude. I got a concerning email from somebody who turned out to be from another province so it wasn't like I was really worried, but he was threatening. I showed it to security just to make them aware in case this guy showed up. But that's only happened the once, I think.
During COVID people started to show a side of themselves they maybe kept suppressed before. I think COVID just exacerbated everything.
What do you wish more people knew about what you do?
I'm really not out to get everybody. Yes, we're looking for tension. Read fiction – tension creates the story, right? Mostly, I just want to get good information out to farmers. Just to let people know what's going on going on. It's almost more like informational.
You once wrote: “I know a little bit in a lot of things and could never farm or ranch, but I can and will tell your story. That's how I can contribute.” I love that. Do you think there will always be a job for people like us, an appetite for these stories?
Yes. Because everybody has one. And they don't all think that they do, but they do.
It's part of connection. As humans, we all want to connect somehow with somebody. And reading somebody's story is a way to do that.
Lots of times I've written a story about somebody, and then I'll get this random email saying, ‘I want to connect with that person.’
I think people always want to hear what others are doing.
Does this feel weird to you, being interviewed instead of the other way around?
Yeah, I'm usually the one asking and sometimes I get myself in trouble, because I ask too many questions. Some people say I'm just nosy. But no, I'm curious. I want to know what's going on. I'm a news junkie to a point. And you have to be – you have to want to know about the world around you.
