Los Angeles Times freelance writer David Karp sent a response today to last week's ANR News Blog post about his May 27 blueberry production story. The nicely written article covered the introduction of a crop usually associated with the Northwest, Michigan and Maine into California; it didn't go into UC's role.
Karp wrote in his e-mail that he agonized over what to include in the article, given the amount of space he would have in the newspaper. He interviewed more than 40 sources, but only had room to cite two.
"If I had room to cite the contribution of three or four persons, and explain what they did, I would certainly have cited (UC Small Farm Program farm advisors) Manuel (Jimenez) and Mark (Gaskell)," Karp wrote. "I'm quite aware of their very substantial contributions to California's blueberry industry."
Karp mentioned that he spent two months of his life and thousands of dollars of his own money to research the article because, "I'm passionate about writing about fruit only when I really know what I'm talking about."
In conclusion, he said, "I apologize to Manuel (Jimenez) and Mark (Gaskell), Ben (Faber) and Gary (Bender) and others, but I'd like to think that they understand that in telling a shortened version of the full story for a newspaper, writers face difficult choices."