Sprog
Member
- Location
- South Shropshire
Have to say I have caught snippets of the coverage through the week and I think it has been excellent. I had been wondering who had been behind it and suspected it must be the NFU as the broad range of subjects covered could not have been provided by anyone else.From the NFU:
The story behind the BBC's Focus on Farming week...
This week, the BBC has been broadcasting farming-related reports on a range of topics across agriculture including climate change, Brexit, nature, welfare and the future of farming.
At the start of the year, following several news reports that misrepresented agriculture and the livestock sector in particular, President Minette Batters wrote to the BBC to complain about the broadcaster’s coverage of food and farming.
Following the letter, Minette and Communications Director Fran Barnes had a meeting with BBC news executives and editors to raise their concerns and discuss how farming could be portrayed in a more balanced light in future broadcasts.
As a direct result of the meeting, the BBC decided to run a week-long focus on farming and the next step for us was to make sure we helped to influence their reporting.
Over the past couple of months we have been in regular contact with journalists, producers and editors across the BBC to discuss their focus on farming. In particular, what issues are important to farmers right now and who would be best to interview. NFU Media Manager Sam Ette says: “obviously we don’t have final say over what the BBC should focus on but by suggesting topics and providing them with background briefings from staff and interviews with NFU members and officeholders, we’ve tried to be as influential as possible.”
See the clips and learn more about the BBC’s Focus on Farming week here
No doubt there will be some who will come on here with criticism but the coverage has been a welcome change to the usual stuff on the BBC.