Post by Teddy Bear on Mar 22, 2008 19:23:16 GMT
Personally, I believe the BBC is just pushing its own 'Green Agenda'. The fact that the government has also seen the 'green' issue as a fat cow to be milked for all its worth is purely coincidental.
BBC's Archers 'pushing green Labour agenda'
By Nicole Martin, Digital and Media Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:45am GMT 19/03/2008
The Archers is facing accusations of "brainwashing" and blindly promoting the Government's green agenda with a plotline about environmentally friendly farming methods.
Listeners claim that the current storyline about whether Home Farm should have a machine which converts waste into electricity is an endorsement of Labour's green credentials and is out of place in a BBC drama.
Others say that the level of detail required to explain the purpose of an "anaerobic digester" is getting in the way of a good radio soap.
However, Graham Harvey, the programme's agricultural story editor, defended the storyline, saying it was the job of The Archers to debate the major farming issues of the day.
"One of the biggest issues in farming at the moment is what farmers can do to combat climate change," he told the BBC's in-house magazine Ariel.
"We keep a very close eye on what's happening in the real world of farming and we're not afraid to go into some detail."
Vanessa Whitburn, who has been editing the programme for 17 years, said: "It is a perfectly normal for the Archers to concern itself with something that is happening in the countryside.
"Asking why we are covering this debate is like asking why we are interested in sheep or bird flu."
It is not the first time that a storyline in The Archers has upset Radio 4 listeners.
The soap lost almost 200,000 listeners last year when two of its central characters were having marital problems.
Ruth Archer's clandestine affair with herdsman Sam Batton, which stopped just short of adultery, did not find favour with many of the programme's faithful.
They complained that script writers had made Ruth and her husband David act out of character to produce a storyline climax for the 15,000th episode in November.
It also divided listeners two years ago when fictional Borsetshire hosted its first homosexual wedding, between Adam Macy and Ian Craig.
A poll for the Radio 4 programme's website found that a fifth of listeners thought same-sex marriages were an inappropriate topic.
But others have praised the show's creators for tackling the subject of civil partnerships.
By Nicole Martin, Digital and Media Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:45am GMT 19/03/2008
The Archers is facing accusations of "brainwashing" and blindly promoting the Government's green agenda with a plotline about environmentally friendly farming methods.
Listeners claim that the current storyline about whether Home Farm should have a machine which converts waste into electricity is an endorsement of Labour's green credentials and is out of place in a BBC drama.
Others say that the level of detail required to explain the purpose of an "anaerobic digester" is getting in the way of a good radio soap.
However, Graham Harvey, the programme's agricultural story editor, defended the storyline, saying it was the job of The Archers to debate the major farming issues of the day.
"One of the biggest issues in farming at the moment is what farmers can do to combat climate change," he told the BBC's in-house magazine Ariel.
"We keep a very close eye on what's happening in the real world of farming and we're not afraid to go into some detail."
Vanessa Whitburn, who has been editing the programme for 17 years, said: "It is a perfectly normal for the Archers to concern itself with something that is happening in the countryside.
"Asking why we are covering this debate is like asking why we are interested in sheep or bird flu."
It is not the first time that a storyline in The Archers has upset Radio 4 listeners.
The soap lost almost 200,000 listeners last year when two of its central characters were having marital problems.
Ruth Archer's clandestine affair with herdsman Sam Batton, which stopped just short of adultery, did not find favour with many of the programme's faithful.
They complained that script writers had made Ruth and her husband David act out of character to produce a storyline climax for the 15,000th episode in November.
It also divided listeners two years ago when fictional Borsetshire hosted its first homosexual wedding, between Adam Macy and Ian Craig.
A poll for the Radio 4 programme's website found that a fifth of listeners thought same-sex marriages were an inappropriate topic.
But others have praised the show's creators for tackling the subject of civil partnerships.