The first thing to highlight about the clashing of the two articles are their titles which immediately reveal their difference in views, ‘Police praise for hunt behaviour’, and, ‘Fox attacked and killed by dogs’. On the one hand in item one the article title tells a reader that after the ban, Hunters have been law abiding, and on the other hand we have article two title which immediately contradicts this by stating that hunters may not have been as law abiding.
This same clashing of views is again revisited in the form of the opening statements of the two articles with one again completely contradicting the other and are basically repeating what the two titles have stated and so adding to the point raised in the paragraph above that the two articles are at ‘log ‘a heads’.
The contradiction continues through out the articles. In item one the article talks of a harmony in rural areas between pro and anti hunters. However in item two it speaks of how a ‘witness’, possibly a member of an anti hunt group which have taken it upon them selves to observe hunt activities all of the country, saw the death of a fox due to a pack of hounds. This suggests that all is not quite as it seems as far as rural harmony is concerned and that pro and anti hunt supporter are in fact observing and intimidating one another.
Both articles both deeply involve the police force however the police are seen, by a reader reading these two articles, to have clashing views. In item one the assistant chief Constable Richard Stowe states: ‘I’m very pleased and would like to congratulate both sides on the way they have behaved.’ And ‘Every one has acted responsibly and sensibly.’ In item two however, though with no direct statement, the article gives off the impression that the police seem discontent with hunt behaviour.
In item two, all though breath, the reader discovers that the police are investigating the clams of an observer that a fox was killed by a number of hounds, and now, after the carcass being recovered, an RSPCA expert is discovering the cause of death. The RSPCA was a well known for lobbying for the Hunting act and launched many advertising campaigns against fox hunting in the years before the total ban was introduced. This means that the police are allowing someone of strong anti fox hunting beliefs to analysis possible incriminating evidence against pro fox hunters. The police, there for are allowing for open biased ness, in other words, the police are allowing a member of a murder victim’s family judge the accused. Surely this is unfair? Surely evidence should be analysed by one with no opinion on the matter at hand.
The two articles however do agree on a one area, in item one right at the end of the article it states, ‘Police have confirmed that they are investigating two cases’, and item two of course is purely about the possible death of a fox due to an attack by a pack of hounds. This means that police, for all their talk of rural peace in item 1, now do have, possibly, evidence that hunts are conducting illegal activities, but the article dose not press this statement, unlike item 2, but gives a swift response from the hunts, ‘The hunts deny all the allegations and say they are acting strictly within the law.’
In the above paragraphs I have explored the contradicting state of the two articles, produced from the same source, in great detail and I conclude that the two articles represent accurately the state of affaires in rural areas, the police are happy with the way things have gone so far but possibly the two sides, in future seasons, will possibly incur one another’s wrath with more violent law breakings and I believe that we have not seen the last of this ‘sensitive issue’.
