BBC Radio 4 has been accused of reducing rural matters to an “absurdly simplistic binary” on its ‘Today’ programme broadcast from The Game Fair on Saturday (July 28).
The Game Fair, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this summer, also featured on ‘The One Show’ last night.
However, rural lobbyists have branded the coverage as “pure tokenism”.
A spokesman for the alliance said: “By choosing to use this opportunity to debate banning grouse shooting, the BBC showed it still has not learned how to discuss a rural issue without reducing it to an absurdly simplistic binary.
“Given the alliance’s record on this issue, we were pleased BBC Radio 4’s flagship current affairs programme, Today, was broadcast from The Game Fair in an attempt to redress the persistent bias we see directed at the countryside.
“However, there are now serious questions to answer about why this broadcast chose to repeat the failings highlighted in the BBC’s review by spending time debating driven grouse shooting.
“This is a perfect example of the BBC’s inability to discuss game shooting without reducing the discussion to an oversimplified battle between protest groups.”
‘A fantasy of a few’
The Countryside Alliance chief executive Tim Bonner said he will be writing to the BBC’s rural champion Dimitri Houtard to request a meeting to discuss why this decision was taken.
Bonner said: “The only relevance banning driven grouse shooting has to the people of rural Britain is to the thousands of people who would lose their livelihoods if this were ever to happen.
“Grouse shooting is a vital and thriving activity that is the lynchpin of upland conservation and community, and its abolition is a fantasy of a very small group of activists.
There were so many interesting debates and discussions being had at The Game Fair, yet once again the BBC defaulted to its same old failings, serving its predominantly metropolitan audience by reducing a rural issue to its most simplistic level.
“In so doing, the decision to host the Today programme at The Game Fair was turned into pure tokenism, showing just how much work we still have to do to achieve a genuinely neutral BBC.”
Ofcom submissions
The Countryside Alliance has persistently campaigned for the BBC to improve its rural coverage, claiming that the broadcaster has failed to implement the findings of its own review into its coverage of rural affairs.
The alliance recently submitted evidence to Ofcom pointing out that the review was undertaken three years ago.
However, in its evidence, the organisation said that the BBC continues to report on rural issues as conflicts between protest groups rather than delving into underlying issues, in direct contradiction to the report’s findings.
