Editor's Note: You can listen to Feedback online or download it here.
Is there a crisis in political interviewing and discussions on radio and television?
The editor of Newsnight, Ian Katz, evidently thinks there is and his comments, following the departure of his formidable, some might say abrasive, presenter Jeremy Paxman, suggests that he thinks his programme needs to adopt a new approach.
Regular listeners to Feedback will know that a significant section of the radio audience shares his view that there is indeed a crisis, although it’s debatable whether the main culprits are over aggressive interviewers, who behave as if their interviewees are guilty of grave offences, or politicians who rarely if ever answer questions, but parrot pre-arranged party soundbites.
How new is this perceived problem?
I have just been rereading Paul Donovan’s excellent history of the Today programme, first published in 1997, and it is full of rather ugly spats. Remember the former Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, saying he had been “kebabbed” by James Naughtie, or the former Conservative Chairman, Brian Mawhinney accusing Sue McGregor of asking “smearing” questions, or the late Brian Redhead asking for a minute’s silence after the former Conservative Chancellor Nigel Lawson said he knew Brian was a labour supporter?
All this was of course before Tony Blair became Prime Minister and his press chief Alastair Campbell started his prolonged offensive against the BBC, talking darkly about the “Humphrys problem”.
One contemporary journalist and leading political thinker who does believe there is a problem is Matthew Taylor, a regular panellist on the Moral Maze, a programme where the heat is sometimes quite intense.
Perhaps as a result of some unsatisfactory Maze discussions Mr Taylor came up with the idea for a new Radio 4 series called Agree to Differ, and most of our correspondents agreed the 3 part series was a refreshing change.
In this week’s Feedback I talked to Matthew Taylor and to Clare McGinn, Head of BBC Radio Production in Bristol, who is responsible for Any Questions, and whose decision to run politician free programmes in the summer recess, was widely welcomed by Feedback listeners.
You can hear that interview in this week’s Feedback
You’ll also hear the Editor of Today, Jamie Angus, deny he is dumbing down his programme to attract younger listeners, but agree that the world news at the moment is off-putting.
And you can discover why You and Yours has been cut by a quarter and whether it will have its missing minutes restored in the near future.
This Feedback run will last until December so there is plenty of time for you to tell us what you want us to examine and explore, or simply want to get off your chest.
We like light but are not averse to a bit of heat.
Roger Bolton.
