I’ve noticed a new, cunning trend in farming.
In the past, farm lobby groups used to get it in the necks for not correcting ‘errors’ in the press. This was despite the fact that often they had written a letter to the paper in question – it just hadn’t been picked up for publication.
The new strategy that bodies like the NFU have adopted is to publish all the letters they have written to the newspapers on their own website as soon as they are penned.
Now, even if it is not included on the letter’s page of a broadsheet or tabloid, the press office can at least show members that they tried.
It’s a bit like the current school exam system – you don’t actually need to get the right answer, you can get loads of marks just by showing your ‘working’.
The NFU is not alone in this strategy. The Health and Safety Executive put an interesting letter on its website yesterday – this time to Farmers Weekly.
Makes me think they doubted we were going to publish it. But I’d suggest they read Farmers Weekly on 7 September…