Former News Director and Farm Director Ray Baynton was the guest speaker at the Huron County Federation of Agriculture's annual general meeting in Holmesville.
He retired earlier this year after 43 years with CKNX.
Baynton says the arrival of computers in the news room was exciting as well as daunting.
But he adds the influence of the internet in delivering news and information that followed that has been a huge game-changer throughout the industry.
One of the biggest challenges was getting staff to trust the system and believe that when they filed a story and it disappeared from their screen they would be able to get it back.
Developing that trust took some time and just as that was beginning to happen the system developed a habit of crashing every day around 5:30 from volume of work.
The panic of trying to put a six o'clock newscast together for television in less than thirty minutes was very stimulating.
Baynton says there have been some obvious benefits as a result of that but it has also brought some pitfalls.
News and information now comes from a number of sources – some valid and some not – and he says that has tended to polarize consumers who will gravitate to the news sources that confirm their own political leaning.
The result is groups of people who are polar opposites living in separate universes but occupying the same space and time. Baynton advises news consumers to try to listen to both the far left and the far right for some kind of balance.
He also suggests that we are going through a transitional period and hopes that eventually some hype from both ends of the spectrum will fall off and the voice in the middle will find an audience.
Baynton capped off the evening by being awarded the Federation's Outstanding Contribution to Agricultural Award.
