22 December 2008
"Hostile and sometimes ill-informed, superficial comment can be highly damaging to the industry’s reputation"
The December Council is the time of the year that the fishing industry comes under intense media scrutiny and for this reason helps to shape the public’s perceptions of the industry for the coming year. Hostile and sometimes ill-informed, superficial comment can be highly damaging to the industry’s reputation.
This year the media coverage was helped considerably by two factors: firstly the story on North Sea cod, which has taken on iconic status, is one of rebuilt stocks and industry involvement in designing more effective ways of dealing with the recovering stock; and secondly, a trip by a BBC reporter and camera team aboard a North Sea trawler, organised by the Federation, meant that there was a much better appreciation of the realities of mixed fisheries and the regulatory pressures to discard than in previous years.
Instead of media stories pre-packaged to meet ill-informed preconceptions, there was a much better appreciation of what these negotiations mean at vessel level.