The Countryside Alliance has lodged a complaint with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme following comments broadcast during its newspaper review segment on Thursday, 13 August, relating to grouse shooting off the back of the Glorious Twelfth.
During the newspaper review readout, the presenter summarised an article from the Financial Times (FT) titled ‘Fire risks threaten lucrative grouse season’.
The presenter claimed that rural residents were raising deep concerns that heather cultivation for grouse shooting posed a health and fire risk, attributing the quote “It’s like we’re sitting on a petrol station” to a “resident”.
The quotation about “sitting on a petrol station” is taken out of original context and planted into a completely separate context, thus distorting what was actually said. The phrase was spoken by Andrew Gilruth, CEO of the Moorland Association - not a “resident”. The management of heather by gamekeepers for grouse shooting allows fuel loads to be safely controlled and wildfire risk mitigated, not the other way around. Evidence shows that leaving heather alone, not managed as a habitat for red grouse and other upland species, i.e. "rewilding", is what causes fuel load build up, which is what Mr Gilruth compared to "sitting on a petrol station".
While newspaper reviews are brief overviews of a third-party story, in this case the FT's, the BBC has a duty to carry out its own due diligence and steps should have been taken ahead of broadcast to ensure accuracy and balance when summarising the FT story so as not to mislead or confuse the audience.
The Countryside Alliance has contacted the production team directly, to request a clarification.