The Minnesota Daily, the University of Minnesota student newspaper, was slow on the uptake of the controversy surrounding the University of Minnesota’s censorship of Troubled Waters: A Mississippi River Story, a documentary on the river and agriculture, pollution, how midwest runoff created a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, and sustainable solutions. Karen Himle, the University’s vice president for university relations, canceled the premiere of the film and its airing on Twin Cities Public Television (TPT). Himle is married to John Himle, president of Himle Horner, a public relations firm that represents the Minnesota Agri-Growth Council, and owns a corn and soybean farm in Nebraska.
In a 20 September 2010 story, Jessica Van Berkel and Taryn Wobbema got Himle to go on the record, something no other journalist in town has managed to accomplish. Van Berkel and Wobbema report Himele as saying “her concern began when she saw a commercial sign for Organic Valley’s dairy farm.” So, Himle’s concerns are clearly of an editorial nature, not scientific validity as University spokesperson Dan Wolter originally claimed.
Organic Valley is a farmer-owned co-op based in Wisconsin. With more than 1,600 farmer-owners, it’s hard to throw a rock in Wisconsin farm country without hitting an Organic Valley sign. “Typically, in an institutional documentary you wouldn’t see a commercial interest,” Himle told Van Berkel and Wobbema. The Daily reporters also cite Greg Cuomo and Abel Ponce de Leon, both College of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS) associate deans as saying the film was “lopsided” (Ponce de Leon) and “‘dramatized’ the relationship between farming and river pollution and ‘vilified’ agriculture without a strong understanding of how it works” (Cuomo). CFANS Dean Al Levine told Minnesota Public Radio on 17 September that the film “vilifies agriculture.” So, at least the CFANS deans are reading from the same script.
Van Berkel and Wobbema quote Levine as denying any outside influence in canceling the release of the film: “No one to my knowledge heard from anyone in big ag about this at all.”
MinnPost.com was also noticeably absent from the start of the controversy, but the online publication redeemed itself with an absolutely excellent catch-up by David Brauer, “The trouble before ‘Troubled Waters.’” Brauer wastes little time in noting that Levine also has ties to the Minnesota Agri-Growth Council (he’s a board member).
Then he drops the bomb that this isn’t the first time Karen Himle has been involved in censoring a University-related project that failed to kowtow to Big Agriculture. In January 2008, the University’s alumni magazine, Minnesota, contracted with freelancer Greg Breining for a story on University-funded energy research. In February 2008, Brauer cites a Star Tribune article reporting that the “Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council announced they would suspend US$1.5 million in grants” [link in original]. The reason? A study by University faculty member David Tilman critical of ethanol and soy-based biodiesel. Tilman is a renowned ecologist, known for his work in resource competition and biodiversity, and was a source for both Breining’s article and the Troubled Waters documentary. Brauer reports that soybean grant funding was restored “only after meeting with Levine.”
Breining’s story was spiked.
Phil Esten, chief executive of the University of Minnesota Alumni Association, told Brauer that the story was killed because it was “an evolving story ... later canceled because the timing didn’t make sense.” Esten also told Brauer that the story “was requested for review by the Vice President of University Relations.” That would be Karen Himle. Through University spokesperson Dan Wolter, Himle told Brauer that she “does not recall reviewing this specific piece, as she was in Norway at the time. Having been included on feedback provided by someone else, she did ask that whatever was published be balanced as this is an institutional publication.”
And Molly Priesmeyer, writing for the Twin Cities Daily Planet, is back with another installation; this time after viewing Troubled Waters. Priesmeyer reports that the University “doesn’t ‘own’ the film.”
If the University doesn’t own the film, how did Karen Himle manage to get TPT to cancel its airing with a single phone call?
Priesmeyer also brings up the academic freedom angle, citing an anonymous article on the Faculty for the Renewal of Public Education blog:
“And the clencher, which finally puts to rest why the U pulled the film: ‘If the scientists from CFANS had not also had an issue with it, the film would have gone forward as is, Himle said.’
“Say it ain’t so! Can you imagine your dean messing around in your work and telling you that it doesn’t meet her/his standards for balance (whatever that means)?”
Late this afternoon, the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) called for the resignation of Karen Himle, referring to her handling of the film’s cancelation an “outrageous affront to science in the public interest.” LSP also called for the film to be released as scheduled and for the University to “execute a full review of how public relations concerns and corporate agriculture interests trumped the public good when Himle made the decision to pull the film.”
As Bob Collins writes in the Minnesota Public Radio News Cut blog, the controversy “... is either a huge story, or has been managed into a huge story by the way it’s been handled.”
Disclosure notice: My potential conflicts of interest are clearly listed in the “Disclosure box” sidebar. To be absolutely clear: I have been employed by the University of Minnesota’s College of Design as senior editor/ecommunications manager since 25 July 2006.
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