I, too, felt liberated leaving my journalism job. Each year, I had to sign a code of ethics, promising not to engage in any activity that would create a conflict of interest with my work – or even the appearance of one.
But a recent freelance assignment – dissecting the Romney
and Obama Medicare plans – made me
realize that I am still not really free to speak out. Not if I want to continue as a fact-seeking
reporter, trying to be as objective as possible.
After so many years in journalism, advocacy is a mantle
David wears uncomfortably but he feels his cause goes to the heart of what
America is all about. Free choice and a
free market.
How could raw milk be
controversial? you might ask. But both sides of the debate feel that they are absolutely
in the right. I’m going to oversimplify:
On one side, the government –with all its powers of
regulation, enforcement and arrest -- has the duty to protect the public from
illness and death from unpasteurized products. Just as passionate are the raw
milk folks. Both buyers and sellers
believe in the potential benefits of cleanly produced raw (unpasteurized) milk
as a more nutritional product, that might even help prevent such conditions as
asthma. And they believe in their right to be producers and consumers of it.
Little did David know
that a war was raging over the issue when he stumbled on a small online post in 2006. “The Michigan Department of Agriculture had conducted a sting
operation against a farmer in Michigan, stopped him on the highway, confiscated
his raw milk and other stuff he was bringing to a cooperative in Ann Arbor. Then two weeks later, it happened to a farmer in
California. The state Department of
Agriculture came and shut his farm down.”
“People were outraged,” Gumpert said, of the outpouring on
his health blog, the Complete Patient.
Since then, he’s written about
confrontations involving custom slaughtered meat, pastured eggs that don’t
necessarily meet all the regulations about refrigeration—“foods that the
government is trying hard to keep off the market and restrict more and more,”
he said.
David has also argued against
efforts in cities such as Philadelphia and New York to ban sugared soft drinks.
“I don’t drink soft drinks and I don’t serve them to my
family, but I don’t think we should ban them,” he said. “We should educate
people. No matter what the food, we shouldn’t be banning foods…“We should
decide what food we should put into our bodies.”
“I think it’s real important that we keep
those rights, and that people who are producing the food have the ability to
produce this food. Otherwise we’re going to be in a situation where our only
choice is this overly sterilized food. I really believe that.”
David Gumpert, the journalist, continues to
write books and report on his blog. David Gumpert, the advocate, quietly helps
farmer groups deal with the media. He’s uncomfortable but determined.
“I’ve become like an activist in
this food rights movement, which is a totally unexpected and new turn for me,”
he said.
At 65, he could be spending more
time reading, riding his bike and traveling, which he loves. But, he says, in words echoed often on this
blog, “I want to do something
beneficial, something that could be helpful to others.”
In the same spirit, minions of the
“unHatched, ” such as David Broida,
along with others with the newly found freedom of time, are pouring their energy
into the upcoming election – on one side or the other.
Because of what they believe is
right.
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