Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Just Say hey Podcast where we talk about the things that matter to small farms.

Speaker 1: 0:04

Today's kind of a funny one, and you got to stick with me to see how I tie this all back in. But a couple weeks ago the Grammy Awards. The association behind the Grammy Awards is the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Anyway, the Grammy Association, the National Academy, awarded Beyonce with the Country country music album of the year.

Speaker 1: 0:29

And for those of you that don't know me very well, I I, for 20 plus years I worked in the music, entertainment, television, broadcast news, uh, industries, and that movie. I did a lot of different things but I was an engineer, producer, creative guy, technical. I did a lot of different things, but I was an engineer, producer, creative guy, technical guy did a lot of computer stuff. Anyway, one of my early honors was being invited to become a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and I was a member. I may still be a member, to tell you the truth, I'm just I'm not sure my wife pays the bills. I don't know whether she still pays the dues or not, but I was a member of the National Academy going back into geez, the early 1990s. So you know, I've been a member for quite a while and when I was originally invited it was a great honor. It may still be an honor to be a member. I don't know, I haven't paid attention, don't really care that much, but I think when you see something like Beyonce winning the country music album of the year, you have to question that decision a little bit. And that brings me into an important topic that I think we need to discuss. We'll have a little bit of fun with the Beyonce thing, but we got to discuss the manipulation that happens in media and I think you should stick around for this, because this is a really important topic. So anyway, let's get into it. Welcome to Just Say hey.

Speaker 1: 1:56

The podcast where we talk about what matters to small farms, whether it's business, marketing, agronomy, equipment, livestock. If it matters to small farms, we'll probably talk about it here. So let's get into it. So before I get on to, you know, talking about Beyonce winning the Country Music Album of the Year, I will tell you that I went in, downloaded and listened to the entire album of Beyonce's I think it's called Cowboy Carter and she. Now, you know they talk about well, willie Nelson's on there and Post Malone and Dolly Parton and anyway, they talk about this as a country album and I've listened to the whole thing. I can tell you that she has a fantastic voice. She is an incredibly talented lady. Never met her, never worked with her.

Speaker 1: 2:48

The engineers and producers who put that album together did a for the genre that it is. It did a wonderful job. It ain't country, of course. In my opinion, country music should be George Strait, dave Stamey and, you know, maybe some Whiskey Miners kind of stuff. But you know, it's just kind of my thinking.

Speaker 1: 3:08

When we talk about how a record gets to be voted on by the Academy, here's the way it used to work when I was originally invited to become a member, and I believe it's going back quite a while, but I believe you had to be invited by a member to become a member and then you had to have credit on I believe it had to be the dust jacket of a record registered with the Library of Congress and I think that's how it used to work. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that's how it used to work. So my qualifying record was not a very popular one, it was just a little jazz record and I was a mastering engineer on that. So that was my qualifications to get in. I and you would kind of pick what categories and it was all on the honor system. You sort of determined what categories you had expertise in, where you had work experience, where you had creative experience, knowledge, things like that, and you know you would vote on those things that you knew about.

Speaker 1: 4:26

So when the ballot would come out, it used to be in two stages. It would be that you would nominate in a category, in categories where you do something about, and then it would come back and you would have the final nominations and then you would vote on those final nominations. So you know, at the end you know I forget when it was, but you would I would say it was like October, november you would get your final nominations for album of the year. Maybe it might be January, I don't remember but you'd get your nominations and you would vote on those top picks, so the top five, and you would vote on those. Well, because you had some industry expertise, it sort of was a level playing field-ish, not perfect, but it was good enough. And I mean every industry has awards like this. I mean, whether you're a doctor or you like concrete. Every industry has awards like this. I mean, whether you're a doctor or you lay concrete or you, you know you do. There are industry trade organizations that get out awards. It's fun to do, I guess, but the Grammys you would. You would vote in your categories because you had industry expertise, you were an engineer or producer or a musician, and you know I did a lot of that stuff, so we would vote.

Speaker 1: 5:51

Well, what changed? And I don't know whether the membership requirements changed or record companies just figured it out. But if you go back into remember I said your name has to be on the dust jacket and for those of you that aren't old enough to remember a dust jacket, shame on you. When you open up the cover of a CD or a record album and look on the back, you would see all the names of the people who produced or engineered or played on the record. But all of a sudden you had this shift because companies figured out that a Grammy Award equaled X percentage of a bump in sales of that record. So what can we do to give ourselves a better shot of winning a Grammy? So they started including more people's names on the dust jacket. So if you go back to the late 1970s and look at the people listed on the dust jacket of a record whether it's the actual big album artwork with all the names on the back or you go look on the inside cover when you used to buy physical CDs. You open it up and you look at all the names on there. Record companies figured out that if somebody's name was on the dust jacket they could pass and become a member when they had accountants and caterers and all kinds of things all of a sudden being included on the dust jacket. And I'm sure for the Academy, you know that's a lot more members, people that work for a record company and they have their name on the dust jacket.

Speaker 1: 7:24

Well, that's votes, because you're going to vote for your project. In a perfect world, you don't. And I get we're not in a perfect world, so you get, these people are going to vote for their project. What does an accountant care about? The artistic integrity of an award? They want to see the artist that they worked with. If they were the accountant on that project, they wouldn't see that album win because it makes them more money. So you know you had this change in how the awards were being voted on through a loophole and you know I was lucky enough. I worked on several Grammy-nominated projects, many of them, multiples of them, and you know it was cool the projects that won. I was never nominated personally for one, I was never that big in the industry, but I worked on projects that were.

Speaker 1: 8:23

I think that in today's world, it's important for us to understand when we're being manipulated, and I think, as small farmers yeah, this by everything that's going to be going on in the federal government and the number of people and reduced budget I think it's important for us to have an understanding and have a way to look up whether we're being manipulated. And I think this is really important and you know, I'll sort of look at it this way, this way. So when they go to change the USDA, as small farmers we need to really really pay attention to that. And first let me say there are a heck of a lot more small farmers like me, like maybe, like you than there are big farmers. Yet I think if you look at the way the USDA gives out money to farmers, when the USDA looks at programs, they look at big farms first, fair or not? That's the way I think it happens. So you know we need to understand this, and I say this because I think it's not only important excuse me it's not only important from us as farmers looking at our industry, but it's also important for us as people when we start seeing, because the USDA is going to come under fire. I think you know, like we talked about before, the SNAP the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program takes up a huge portion of agricultural spending and this SNAP program is everything from school lunches to what used to be called the food stamp program. But when it comes down to the things that actually impact farmers, I think you're going to see some shakeup and we need to know what's real and what's not.

Speaker 1: 10:51

And I think one of the best things that we can do to prepare ourselves is understand when we're getting manipulated, when we're being played. When you see a social media post, for example and this really came to mind because I have an old friend of mine. She an absolutely sweetheart, she's a good person, great heart she has been sharing some absolutely kooky stuff without looking to see whether it's factual or not, and I will tell you that, no matter who you are, there are people who look up to you, who respect you, who respect your opinion on things, and when you share a post that is not true or a post that maybe slants the facts and positions it in a bad way, I think you are doing the people that trust, respect and look up to you a great disservice, and so I encourage you to understand when we're getting played. Now, I'm guilty of this too. I don't think I'm guilty of sharing stuff that's untrue or anything like that, because I take this stuff seriously. I take that very seriously.

Speaker 1: 12:15

If you're on social media whether it's TikTok or Facebook or Instagram or whatever and you see something that really hits you emotionally hard it really just gets at the core of who you are that is probably the time to stop. Take an extra minute, 60 seconds back up, do a quick bit of research, look up is this true, is this false? Social media algorithms and I don't want to get too technical in this, but they reward posts that drive emotional responses Social media posts that drive emotional responses, that drive you to click and share, and stuff like that get rewarded by the social media algorithms mean they get shown more. So when you see something that really hits you emotionally and you react by sharing by you know, liking, commenting, whatever it is. However it is, you choose to interact. Those get rewarded, get shown to more people because it shows that number that they can measure, and when you do that to something that is not true or biased in some way, it gets rewarded and you are doing the people that look up to you a real disservice. It really gets to be a bad thing. That's why the Russian hackers and the Russian social influencers they call them hacker farms. They're doing what's called social engineering and I think that we as people have a responsibility to take an extra minute on those things that hit us emotionally hard, take an extra minute to see whether that's real or not, whether that's an important thing, and if it is and it's true and you've done a little bit of research, then yeah, share it because it's important. But you need to verify. There's too much misinformation and we are bombarded with so much information that it's hard to know what's real, what's not, what's being slanted. And I'll give you a couple of places that I look for this stuff because I think it's important to understand when you're dealing with whatever news outlet it is you watch, whether you watch Fox or you watch CNN or you watch whatever it is whatever news organization or outlet you aligns with your viewpoints. If you listen to the show, I'm a fairly conservative guy, but I think we need to figure out ways.

Speaker 1: 15:18

The thing that makes America great is because we don't penalize minorities. We try to be fair. Everybody has some basic and A-level rights as citizens of this country. The challenge we have is how do we do the most good for the most amount of people without trampling on or being dismissive to minority viewpoints? This is always a balancing act. It's always a balancing act and the thing that I think we need to guard against is when we allow the viewpoints of a minority to become the rules, to the detriment of the most people. I think that's when we get into some sticky or scary situations. And again, we have to do the most good for the most amount of people while not trampling on the rights, freedoms, privileges of the minority. And that minority could be race, could be sexual orientation, could be political viewpoints, could be jobs, could be any viewpoint you have that's not in the majority is a minority viewpoint. I mean, that's just the definition of it, the definition of it. So it's kind of a tough balancing act and what I think is happening and this is important to me because I see it happening a lot right now.

Speaker 1: 17:03

We are the media. We, because we serve social media, we see these things and we watch them and they get rewarded because we're engaging with them. We are rewarding both sides of the extreme and what we need to do is understand that everything, there is compromise, in almost everything. There are two sides to almost every story. In almost everything. There are two sides to almost every story and you need to sit down and when something hits you emotionally, when it just really tugs at you or really just gets you mad, that's probably a great time to step back and say, okay, what is the other side of this story?

Speaker 1: 17:48

Now, I'm not saying you have to agree with it. I'm not trying to change your opinion by doing that. You're going to clarify your own opinions on it. You're going to clarify your own opinions on what are your viewpoints on any given topic, especially controversial ones. Viewpoints on any given topic, especially controversial ones. You know, if you're going to be, if you're going to stand up for something, you should understand both sides, because it clarifies our own viewpoints on things and I think we have that responsibility in today's world, where it's so easy for misinformation to be rewarded, right, and I'll step back for a second and say that I know I started this whole thing off with Beyonce and she's a crossover artist and it was a judgment call by the people who voted. Maybe they stacked the deck, maybe they didn't, but we, you know, because I said I was a member, I used to vote on the Grammys I understand how that works and I understand how the system can be played and I will say, you know, that record isn't, in my opinion, in the country either, but it is what it is. She won the award.

Speaker 1: 19:03

I think we just need to understand how that happens and a little more transparency in things. What was it our grandparents used to tell us? The best disinfectant is sunlight. I think that responsibility that we have in understanding how we're being manipulated, understanding it, is important. And I'll kind of say this as we kind of start to tie this all together there are going to be be coming up in the weeks, months, whenever that becomes a priority the USDA. I think you'll start seeing that after you start seeing some of the major like HHS secretary, I don't think you'll see USDA touched until that confirmation and by the time this podcast is released. That confirmation may have already happened, but I think that will be one that kind of triggers some deeper looks into this kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 20:09

But we need to as citizens, as farmers, we need to be understanding how media tries to make its point. And I'll tell you, you know, in my experience in that business there's not now, maybe at the high levels there is a media bias. I know, you know CNN. I used to do some work for Turner's companies back 100 years ago and I know Ted, I don't know Ted. If you look at Ted and Jane, they have political ideologies and Ted Turner started CNN. So I think that has swayed to meet their political ideology.

Speaker 1: 20:57

But news organizations have demographics because that's how they make money. They say do slant things to reward demographics. If you are a left-leaning young adult 25 to 54, young adult to middle-aged adult that's probably their demo and probably targeting it down there. Probably women 25 to 54 is probably their demo, left-leaning women 25 to54, whereas Fox is probably right-leaning women 2554. That's probably their prime demo. News outlets reward demos and they want to do and say the things that are going to encourage their demo to watch more. But whatever side you're on, if you watch CNN, stop for a little bit, go watch Fox. You're on. If you watch CNN, stop for a little bit, go watch Fox.

Speaker 1: 21:58

Or, better yet, find a news outlet that is balanced, that truly is, and I'll tell you the one I look at, because I think they do a really good job. I've never worked for them, don't know much about them, other than that they rank stories based on bias and part of their reporting when you look at their reports, part of their reporting is about understanding bias in the news, and I think this is really, really important. There's an organization Ground Ground News, I think is their name. I'll put a link in the description. Check them out. They basically take stories. They don't report news. What they do is they take stories and they have an independent panel of some sort where they rank news outlets Wall Street Journal, new York Times, new York Post, you know CNN, fox, msnbc, nbc, all of them and they rank their stories based on. They rank the networks and outlets themselves by their political bias for one side or the other, and they basically have a website. They also have an app, but they have a website that when you look at any given story, they'll show you which news outlets are covering it, because it's just as important to understand. You know, when a news outlet covers something where their slant is for their demo, but it's also important to understand what they're not covering. What they're not covering is just as telling as what they do cover. So that's one ground. The other one that I would suggest is and again, I'm not getting paid by these guys, I don't know them, I don't have any affiliation, nothing with them. I like their coverage because part of their coverage they give the news story to talk about it. But what they also report on is what outlets are covering and not covering it to uncover. So we can uncover bias in certain stories. And I think that's really, really important for us as we start to get news on things that impact our business and our lives.

Speaker 1: 24:21

And remember and I'll just kind of close this up here for a minute and just say don't be a sucker, don't share or agree with something just because you saw it once. Take the time, be responsible and understand both sides. Understand, not agree with, but understand both sides of an argument. It will help you clarify your own viewpoints. And when you discuss with people, the first thing to do, in my humble opinion, is listen when somebody confronts you with something that you disagree with, understand why, before you just respond.

Speaker 1: 25:08

It's easy to pick a side and say you know they're wrong or they're stupid. It's easy to pick that side and you'll find plenty of people to stand beside you saying it. The hard thing to do, the difficult thing, but the responsible thing to do, is pick a side but understand what things that you stand for. And to understand that, you have to understand the opposition, what other people think, what other people say. So the first part is important Listen, learn and then, when you speak, say things you really believe in.

Speaker 1: 25:52

Don't just share stuff because it pokes at one side or the other. It can be fun and but you're doing your, the people that trust you, the people that look up to you and there are people that look up to almost everybody when you say things. When you share something that may not be factually completely right, or you share something that may not be factually completely right, or you share something that may have a slant. One way or the other, you're doing those people that look up to you a disservice and ultimately, you are reducing the efficacy of what you stand for. With that, have a great day, good luck, god bless.