Sycophantic coverage (From Gazette & Herald)

Sycophantic coverage

2:30pm Thursday 24th January 2008

• Print
• Email
• Share

LAZY journalism must be one of the easiest occupations there is.

You either listen to someone talk rubbish and then put it into print without any checks or queries, or you take what was printed last time you covered the subject was covered, alter a couple of words and hit reprint. In the case of the Middleton Hunt's Boxing Day meet your journalist appears to have done both. This year's sycophantic coverage informed the readers that hundreds of hunt supporters and about 100 riders took part.

The hunt master was quoted saying there has never been as much support for hunting as there is now, and they tried to ban hunting and it has just become more popular.

First, no-one tried to ban hunting. Drag hunting was positively encouraged whilst the sadistic pastime of setting packs of dogs onto sentient creatures was successfully and rightly outlawed.

Secondly, a trawl through previous Boxing Day coverage sheds some light on your reporting of hunt support. From 1977 to 1992 there was hardly any coverage and when there was no figures were given.

In 1993 the support was described as hundreds, as it was in 1998, 2005 and 2006.

In 2003 the crowd was described as several hundred. The crowd size in 1996 was approximately 1,000 and in 1999 up to 1,000.

The year 1997 saw 'more than 1,000 as did 2004.

In future if you see fit to cover the hunt could I please ask that you check your facts and put any figures into an historical context.

TOMMY WOODWARD, Pickering

• Print
• Email
• Share