You may remember that there was a lot of fuss last year over a YFTB-led error-strewn piece in the Daily Telegraph. Many of us complained to the Daily Telegraph and then on to the Independent Press Standards Organisation.
With their help we got the Telegraph to correct the piece and print an apology – a small victory for truth but a victory nonetheless.
IPSO has published their annual report and it includes the following quote from me:
I believe that IPSO was grateful to me for saying something nice about them (it wasn’t hard, they did a very effective and seemingly fair job) but I am grateful to IPSO for including the full quote including the comparison with Defra.
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Great work. Unfortunately it’s like playing whack-a-mole. You splat one big lie of the grouse shooting lobby, and up pops up an even bigger crock of it. Someone needs to do it though. What would really blow the doors of their dirty tricks would be a major TV exposure of what they’re up to. Unfortunately most of the public has never even heard about what is going on. Most of the public do not read this blog, read Inglorious, read the Guardian Environment section, are not birders etc, and have no idea what is happening.
You will note that the Mail’s attack on Chris Packham the other day completely failed to mention why Chris Packham was saying these things about the grouse shooting industry. It gave the completely false impression that Chris Packham was just anti-shooting, and against the shooting of grouse. That is was based on class envy etc. This is because the grouse shooting lobby want to stop the public at large finding out about what is going on. If they even mentioned in the Mail that this was really about the illegal killing of Hen Harriers, they know they would have let the cat out of the bag.
What the grouse shooting lobby really fears is that someone like Chris Packham may mention what is going on during prime time TV and then their dirty little secret would be out in the open, and they’d feel the full wroth of the public.
Then mention it is exactly what Chris Packham should do. Preferably in front of camera, standing outside parliament with all of us who do know what’s going on, cheering him on.
Ok, well that’s what I’d like to happen, but yes, I do realise that that would mean the end of his day job and that would not be good for either him or us.
Having said that, some sort of direct action now seems to be needed to get this across to the majority of people who would be appalled if they only knew.
I’d certainly be up for a peaceful demo on a grouse moor on Friday!
The mass trespass on Kinder Scout in 1932 had the desired effect, how much more so, a similar protest in this age of modern communications.
Still time to organise it?? Mark?
Channel 4 ‘Despatches’ would be ideal – right up their street, I’d have thought!
Having just posted the above, I have now seen ‘Northern Diver’s’ comment about the walk at Hebden Bridge on Friday morning.
Have you got any placards we can borrow Mark?