Response to my complaint letter about the misportrayal of an anti-fracking campaigner on Casualty: Thanks for contacting us regarding Casualty broadcast on 22 March 2014. I understand you were disappointed with the portrayal of anti-fracking protestors which you felt misrepresented the protest movement. Id like to reassure you that it wasn’t our intention to show anti-fracking protestors in a bad light. The characters in this episode were trying to prevent a lorry from entering a fracking site by using an old police stinger to blow its tyres, not cause an accident. They weren’t to know that the driver had a known medical condition which meant he shouldn’t have been driving. Once the lorry crashed the two main protestors made sure the driver was safe and were also injured in the process. We wanted to show that there were consequences for all of them and not just the protestors. Drama programmes include a range of people from professions such as that of medical staff and police to environmental protestors. The characters are larger than life and are not a direct portrayal of any individual or profession and we’re sorry to read of your concerns surrounding the portrayal anti-fracking protestors. No character in a BBC drama, whether it be a member of an environmental campaign group or profession, is intended to represent all individuals within that group as it is not possible to generalise in this way. Many of the characters will have personal or professional failings but this is not intended to reflect negatively on people. I acknowledge however that in this case you felt the portrayal of anti-fracking protestors was overly negative and damaged the reputation of those peacefully protesting. We do welcome all feedback we receive from our audience and be assured your own has been registered on our audience log which is made available to Casualty and senior BBC management. The views of our audience are important to us and help shape our decisions on future programming, policies and services. Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 14:01:51 +0000
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