DAVID
LEE, the NFU assistant press officer at Agriculture House, Knightsbridge
was giving the new issue of Radio Times a quick once-over
on the afternoon of April 26. Looking across at Roger Turff, the
press officer, he said: 'I'm about to spoil your day'.
Radio Times and the Brass Tacks
programme on BBC 2 was to spoil quite a number of days for both
NFU members and staff; between them they also involved other specialised
divisions of the Union, farmers all over the country, and almost
every other organisation connected with Britain's meat industry.
The small picture and paragraph which David Lee
spotted was the trailer for a full-scale feature published in Radio
Times on May 2, which made serious allegations about the use of
drugs on Britain's livestock farms. Heavily loaded against the industry,
full of emotion and somewhat short of facts the effect of the feature
was reinforced by the front cover of the magazine. This, under a
picture of a very healthy looking piglet, told readers: 'HEALTH
WARNING:MEAT AND POULTRY MAY SERIOUSLY AFFECT YOUR HEALTH'.
Misleading
The layout and typeface used was to similar to
that used for official Government warnings on cigarette packets
and advertising as to mislead the casual reader into believing that
this was such and official warning - and within a few moments the
BBC journal's features department was being told so in strong terms.
The Radio Times features man seemed hurt.
"It's just a jokey way of calling attention to it', he said
rather lamely.
The reply he received from Agriculture House was
that quite a number of people were not going to think much of that
joke.
Radio Times for May 2 was already printed
and awaiting dispatch. Could the NFU obtain an injunction to prevent
its publication?
The Union's lawyers advised against such action. If
there was defamation it was defamation of an entire industry; such
damage as might be done would be damage to every livestock farmer
and retail butcher in the country - not to mention the confidence
of the 20 million Radio Times readers.
Vice-President Alan Jackson and Director-General Roy
Watson concluded that since defamation, damage and malicious intent
would have to be proved legally any failure to do so would attract
wide publicity which could easily be interpreted as an attempt to
prevent the public from learning the facts and would draw a much
larger viewing audience.
Instead, it was decided to make every effort to
counter this bad publicity. The Radio Times feature was itself
a trailer for a new edition of the BBC 2 programme Brass Tacks.
This is a current affairs production
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which
aims at "taking the lid off" matters of public concern.
The May 8 transmission was scheduled to deal with
a variety of matters concerning meat production. Chief among these
was a claim, which would be made in the course of the programme,
that the extensive and indiscriminate use of drugs in livestock
poses a major public health risk. For the first time phone-in programmes,
linked to the TV programme, were to go out from every BBC local
radio station.
All this information was extracted by telephone
from various departments of the BBC. Within 24 hours the Union had
secured a guarantee from the Brass Tacks producer that representatives
of the industry would be allowed to answer the claims in the TV
studio. At the same time the NFU's sever regional information officers
received orders to ensure that farmers were in every local radio
station on the night of May 8 and that others were fully briefed
to watch the TV programme and make their views know over the telephone.
All speakers were provided with a technical background
brief on the various matters which might arise. Other sectors of
the industry, among them the Meat and Livestock Commission and the
National Federation of Meat Traders, weighed in with powerful support
and by May 8, the Union was fully prepared to refute the damaging
allegations in the programme.
Publicly there is no doubt that the attack upon
the industry was convincingly repulsed. Although faced with a confused
and disjointed piece of emotive and biased film, which they had
not seen in advance, the industry's representatives in the TV studio
- among them Charles Jarvis, chairman of the British Farm Produce
Council - gave a good account of themselves in a very short space
of time.
On radio farmers rang programmes with questions
and comments, while those on the spot made full use of their opportunity
to answer questions.
Privately, the row rumbled on long after the transmissions.
Letters from the President, Mr Richard Butler, to Sir Michael Swann,
chairman of the BBC - and the Director-General Roy Watson - to his
opposite number Mr Ian Trethowan - expressed the Union's deep concern
at the lack of consultation over the tone of the Radio Times
feature and the production of the Brass Tacks programme.
Director of Information Richard Maslen made a strong protest to
the Editor of Radio Times.
Some good may have come out of it all. The farmers,
to a large extent, put matters right; the NFU proved once again
that it is a body not to be ignored; and a great many people in
many walks of life who know the inside story will perhaps be a little
more critical of future presentations which seek to 'take the lid
off' a selected subject.
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