newspapers and Let's talk about BBC Radio 4newspapers

Talking about James Delingpole...

When BBC reporters (et al) talk about 'blue on blue' attacks during the present EU referendum some of us politically-minded obsessives know what they mean. And some of you will easily be able to work out what I mean by calling James's Radio piece in last week's Spectator a definite case of 'Speccie on Speccie' attack. 

As soon as I read it I knew it was an attack on the Spectator's main Radio reviewer Kate Chisholm (who I've always felt is a good deal more New Statesman than Spectator in her political outlook). Dellers criticised those Radio reviewers who pretend that Radio 4 is endlessly fascinating, wonderfully civilised, often transcendent. He thinks it's usually mostly somewhat boring and irritating. And, as a regular listener myself, I think he has a point - though he deliciously overstates it for rhetorical effect.  

Our Kate obviously realised that it was indeed aimed squarely at her (despite not naming her) and her piece this week was a clear riposte. It began by saying, "Just to prove my esteemed colleague wrong" (despite not naming him), then talked about something other than how great Radio 4 is, and then said that there is something on Radio 4 she doesn't like, and then, pivoting round - her coup de grace - coming across another magical BBC moment (someone saying how great it is that "a black man" is now president of the USA) and hymning the wonders of Radio 4 all over again, triumphantly. It brought a tear to my eye. (I was pealing onions at the time).

James Delingpole's original piece was deliciously provocative and struck a chord with me. 

He finds Today "maddening", Mishal Husain biased, Woman's Hour "hateful" and "sanctimonious", Anita Anand the most irritating presenter on Radio 4, and the station's afternoon plays "the ne plus ultra of Radio 4 boringness". 

And I can see his point about all of those. 

He also finds Jim Al-Khalili's The Life Scientific "dreary" and Eddie Mair the second-most irritating person on Radio 4. 

But I disagree with him about both of those. I've enjoyed many a The Life Scientific, and was both amused and delighted to find so many of the otherwise strongly anti-BBC commenters below his piece also going out of their way to exempt the wonderful Eddie Mair from their criticisms. 

Thank goodness for people like Dellers though. Agree or disagree with them, or do both at the same time, but bless the non-BBC contrarians (especially the ones who are often right)!

newspapers and World on the Movenewspapers

It's one of the pleasing features of the Spectator that it has some regular columnists who aren't typical Spectator writers. 

Their Radio columnist Kate Chisholm always reads to me as if she'd be much more suited to writing for the Guardian or the BBC. Her views are invariably impeccably bien pensant (as her fellow Speccie columnist Rod Liddle might say) and she's nothing if not strongly pro-BBC to boot.

It was hardly surprising, therefore, to read her hymning the BBC's praises in her latest column:

Monday�s �World on the Move Day� on Radio 4 was a bold challenge to government policy and proof that radio is much the most flexible, the most accommodating, the most powerful medium when compared with TV. Without much ado, the day�s planned schedule was squeezed, manipulated, overturned to allow the team behind the Today programme to mastermind a live discussion throughout the day about the migration issue, as if to say to the government, here�s what people not just in the UK but from around the world care about. Let�s listen to them and see what solutions they might have to offer.

Angelina Jolie Pitt was the biggest prize as she took over the You and Yours slot to lead a live lunchtime debate on Radio 4 and the World Service that looked beyond the overcrowded boats in the Mediterranean and the homeless refugees queuing up on the borders of the EU to the migrants who have already arrived but not settled and to the reluctant hosts themselves who are not always so welcoming or accommodating. Why did she choose to use this forum? Because it gave her immediate access to a global audience. But not only that. She knows that speaking on the BBC gives her an authority, a cachet that surpasses her own glamour. Ponder that, Mr Whittingdale.

Maybe Mr Whittingdale might actually make better use of his 'pondering time' by pondering instead that (as Kate herself put it) the BBC was making "a bold challenge to government policy" here - and doing so by focusing on what people "around the world care about" rather than "just" what people in the UK care about.

Should an impartial be BBC "challenging" government policy here?

And Mr Whittingdale might also care to ponder, beyond the question of what the blessed Angelina might want from the BBC, what the blessed BBC instead might want from Angelina: a pro-migration, anti-Brexit plea from a glamorous Hollywood actress as the centrepiece of their 'big migration day'. 

He might ponder whether that's also something that an impartial BBC should be doing.

******

Sue has already mentioned Toby Young's blast against the BBC at the Daily Telegraph. Toby called the whole BBC �World on the Move Day� "anti-Brexit propaganda". ("If you were looking for impartiality, you�d come to the wrong place", he said). 

And another powerful excoriation of the BBC comes from Karen Harradine at The Conservative Woman, which I'd urge you to read. She describes it as "a barrage of manipulative and patronising 'reporting'" and "a dribbling diatribe from a motley assortment of organisations", replete with "virtue-signalling and mawkish sentiment".

I have to say that, what with one thing and another, I didn't listen to much of �World on the Move Day�, so I can't say if it was as appallingly biased as it's been described - though Kate Chisholm's admiring piece leads me to trust the criticisms from Toby and Karen. 

And when Karen writes:

The BBC also triumphantly brandished a demand by the insidious Save the Children charity that refugee children are enrolled in school within one month of arriving in the UK.  Perhaps those who run that charity would like to donate some of their bloated earnings to building new schools as a way to accommodate this? 

....well, I myself noticed that as I was driving (very early) to work. The BBC - starting with Today - was making that call from Save the Children their top story - including (as I checked after getting to work) the BBC News website...

...and its tying-in with the BBC special day surely reinforces the point (from fans and critics alike) that the BBC was in campaigning mode here (which it should never be).

Time permitting (and there's precious little of that at the moment) I'll try and conduct a review of that days coverage on Radio 4 for myself.