MAINSTREAM MEDIA CONTINUES TO LIMIT HEMP INDUSTRY TO STORIES ABOUT MARIJUANA AND CBD, DESPITE MAJOR BREAKTHROUGHS AND INVESTMENT IN FIBER FOR CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS, ELECTRONICS, PAPER AND PLASTICS.
THIS week's Capital Times here in Madison, WI features an in-depth cover story about the hemp industry and its new legal products, for smoking and consuming. The Bridge Blog exists to bring light to the decades long narrative about hemp, created by a hostile US government and its corporate allies in the petrochemical industry. The CapTimes article is a mile wide and an inch deep, so let's clear some things up.
Journalism today is an open market of ideas, anyone can write anything, but the public largely still relies on mainstream sources for "hard news". Editors are focused on keeping audience numbers as high as possible to justify the salaries. This is true for CNN as well as CapTimes. In Wisconsin, a story is real if it comes from official sources, especially the University of Wisconsin. This week's hemp story was written by a science writer on behalf of Wisconsin Life, a production of Wisconsin Public Radio. Institutionally- designated hemp experts from UW and within the THC/CBD industry are quoted. But the bigger picture on the economics and environmental value of hemp is not part of the story, as we have been promoting statewide in GA and WI for 5 years, in collaboration with Univeristy of Georgia, Georgia Tech and UW.
This Bridge Blog is about lighting a vast area of darkness when it comes to hemp as a plant that can transform rural economies, with buy-in opportunities at every level of the supply chain, from young students, to farmers, small business and up to venture capital, banks and corporate manufacturers, ranging from Wisconsin's paper industry, batteries and electronics, plastics, construction materials.
CapTimes has covered Wisconsin Battery Company in the past, but even then displaying a superficial understanding of the implications, from the past and for the future. This week's article, covering several page, misses the mark and only makes the messaging about fiber more difficult.
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