The decision by the BBC’s CountryFile magazine to turn down an advertisement from the Countryside Alliance may well have its origins in an earlier incident. In 2002 the Shooting Industry Fund (SIF) placed an ad in CountryFile. The SIF which was set up in the wake of Dunblane to build a war chest, so that in the event of a similar outrage in future the industry would have the resources with which to defend itself. The placing of the ad was part of a modest campaign aimed at confronting the way in which opponents of shooting tend to be highly selective about conservation. An advertisement was prepared showing a typical Barbour clad game shooter standing next to a cat. Beneath the images the copy read:
“Last year the one on the right killed one hundred and fifteen pheasant. Those he and his family did not eat, he gave to friends. The land where he shoots supports twenty two species of birds, twelve types of mammal and more than fifty varieties of plants. Last year the one on the left killed more than 130 birds including a rare Dartford Warbler. He also dispatched sixty mammals many being rare bank vole. He didn’t eat any of them”
Guess which one the RSPCA wants to ban?
The appearance of the ad produced a deluge of complaints from the magazine’s readers all of whom believed it should not have been published although none put up any cogent argument against its central point. The editor joined in saying that had she known the ad was going in she would not have allowed it to appear, this despite the fact that the magazine had accepted previously accepted ads from the League against Cruel Sports. The SIF complained to the BBC that the editor’s remarks were in direct contravention of the BBC’s charter commitment to remain unbiased. Three months later the editor resigned.