Ethics again. I interviewed David Markey by phone a few days ago at his office in Dublin, Ireland and now he’s here in the states. He just gave a workshop on “Can Publishers Afford To Be Ethical?” It’s clear that the whole issue is very “unclear.” However, in his publication group everything is run by his editors. He issues no mandate from on high. As we heard yesterday at the ARC meeting and again today, there’s just more and more pressure being put on ag media to run public relations material. I thought it was very interesting that although David will publish an advertorial he charges 25 percent more to the advertiser. Makes sense to me.
Charlie Hale, Bayer CropScience, was in the room and encouraged all the publishers and editors to hold their ground when the pressure comes to bear. He said that the media credibility is what he buys and he wants to make sure that’s maintained.
The afternoon sessions of the Ag Media Summit have just concluded. One that was standing room only was conducted by Mike Raine, 
One of the seminars at the 
Now that the Ag Relations Council meeting is over it’s time for the Ag Media Summit! To get the work underway it was board meeting morning. In this picture it’s the 
At the same time this morning the 
The last panel on the Ag Relations Council program was on Lifestyle Producers. Speaking were (l-r) Gene Hemphill, New Holland, Brad Schu, Purina Mills and Jeff Young, Bader-Rutter. Each presented information about what they’ve learned from research and ways they’re using that information to market products to this very diverse market segment. 
At the Ag Relations Council business meeting president, Jeri Omernik, reported that there are currently 74 members and that the legwork has been done to organize and set up new procedures to jump start a solicitation of new members and re-institute the Golden ARC Awards program. She said that the transition from having NAMA oversee the organization is complete and they’re seeing a lot of renewed interest from past and potential members.
German Fest wouldn’t be authentic without polka music right? So that you can get the flavor of the event, here for your pleasure is a cut of polka music from one of the live stages at German Fest in Milwaukee.
So what do you do at German Fest? You find a good beer and sit down with friends and enjoy. Here’s some of the happy group from the ARC meeting doing just that.
You never know who you’ll run into at an event like German Fest. As we were wandering around we noticed Emery Kleven, current president of the National Association of Farm Broadcasters taking a photo. Emery’s not here for ARC or AMS. Just “Festing” along with thousands of his best friends.
The Ag Relations Council group headed to German Fest by trolley just as soon as business was over.