There is something rotten in the state of the BBC. Nowhere is this more evident than in their flagship current affairs programme, Radio 4’s Today.
It is not just the BBC’s Jubilee coverage that proved lamentable last week. Yes, the dumbed down Hyde Park banality, incompetent female reporters and spurious anti-elitism were all appalling. Not to show and report the Royal river pageant in its full and total glory – a once in a several century happening – was more than a lapse of judgement.
The BBC hierarchy forgot that this is exactly what its remaining defenders pay the licence fee for.
That, and the impartial and informative news and current affairs service that it is meant to deliver. But there’s the rub. It doesn't do this job properly either.
Dumbed down: Sophie Raworth and Matt Baker failed to impress while presenting the Jubilee river pageantThis was evident last week on Today, the programme that politics watchers tune into every morning to start the day as automatically as they clean their teeth.
Despite a week of impending economic and political doom, what we got was a diet of the mundane and the unremarkable; and interviews that sent you back to sleep.
Today lost the editorial plot. It had no clear agenda. Its news judgement was hopeless. Biased we are used to, but last week it added bland and boring to its stable of Bs.
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Analysis of Angela Merkel’s resistance to bailing Spain was also remarkable by its absence; as was discussion on the downgrading of the German banks.
Where were all the specialist reporters and commentators? Or did Today just decide it was all too much effort?
Take what should have been a crucial interview with George Osborne earlier in the week. It fell as flat as a pancake. Evan Davis’s strength and contribution to Today was meant to be his expertise in economics.
So why didn’t he tear Osborne to shreds over his budget U-turns? Why didn’t he challenge him on the public’s complete loss of confidence in the government’s economic competence? And what about his and Cameron’s clichéd response to fast impending EU and euro meltdown? Couldn’t Evan have played devil’s advocate?
Confrontation was never more absent than when it was needed.
What made Today think anyone wants to hear Lord Owen's views on Britain's relationship with the EU?And what on earth made the programme’s editors think that anyone is now remotely interested in hearing what Lord Owen - charming, intelligent and worldly-wise though he may be - has to say about our relationship with the EU, if indeed we have any idea what it will eventually morph into?
More than anything, it beggared belief in the midst of such economic and political catastrophe – and near-daily massacres in Syria while the world still chews its fingernails on what to do - that Today's editors could lead a show with John Prescott’s opportunistic and ludicrous ‘unpaid workers’ Labour Camp claim.
But news priorities aside, it was par for the Today course. Only months ago the programme similarly ‘bigged up’ the equally indefensible story of job seekers (shockingly) being asked to stack supermarket shelves. Evan Davis then appeared outraged that students should have to demean themselves in this way. The programme did not let go of the topic until the government backed down on a perfectly legitimate scheme. It made you wonder then quite what priorities and values its ‘precious’ presenters were promoting.
So don’t expect any red faces amongst them now it transpires that far from being trapped in a labour camp under London Bridge, the job seeker Jubilee ‘stewards’ trainees enjoyed a jolly good Jubilee day.
It is no wonder that Today’s listening figures have plummeted over recent months, down by half a million from a short lived peak at the end of last year.
When not outright biased or out of touch with reality, Today’s journalism has become lazy, bland and boring and simply puts you back to sleep.
It is no longer worth tuning into. Story choice is dreary, interviews are under-researched and rely on ever duller guests.
More... CHRISTIAN MAY: Shall we buy Prezza a one-way ticket to North Korea? Then he can find out what a labour camp really looks like We must quit the EU and be free of its 'shackles' or face joining a 'single country called Europe', says former Labour Foreign Secretary Lord Owen Labour camp? No, we just had a great time, Lord Prezza: Jobless Jubilee stewards dismiss 'exploitation' claimsOne such was a professor from Exeter who bored for Britain this week. Who picked him for heaven’s sake, or so rated his ‘ground breaking’ (and tax-wasting) research that exercise does not help relieve depression?
So sitting on your bottom and getting obese does? It clearly did not occur to the obedient and ‘PC’ Today researchers to ask. The dull professor was not challenged at all – not on what exercises these depressives were actually given, or whether they were made to stick to them. We were left none the wiser, expected merely to ingest his great new ‘scientific’ finding.
And what else did Today focus on in this most news critical of weeks?
Apart from Prezza’s specious complaint we had inter alia, council wind farm protest, a world without traffic wardens; predictably biased, pro police and under-researched reportage of Tom Winsor’s appointment as Chief Inspector of Constabulary; the UK ‘boycott’ of Euro 2012 and singer songwriter Neil Young’s dark and violent themes (and anti-monarchist tones).
The programme got more pointless by the day as economic and political news was inadequately reported and lost editorial ground, weight and focus.
Sarah Montague: Today's newer presenters lack John Humphrys¿ toughness, and James Naughtie¿s literacyThe tone, though, was set by the presenters - and the newer trio are lightweights.
Sarah Montague is patronising. Evan Davis comes across as a glib and immature product of the ‘me’ generation. Justin Webb is just plain boring. None can replicate John Humphrys’ toughness, James Naughtie’s forensic skills and literacy – both of which we hear less and less - nor Ed Stourton’s general intelligence. (Of course, he was dropped in a previous anti elitist flurry.)
Today is the first ‘voice’ that millions of us wake up to, and that makes for a peculiarly intimate relationship. We still want to believe it sets the news agenda for the day and will tell us what we need to know.
But it can't rely on our continued loyalty if it fails to inform, if the tone jars, the voices irritate and the items are inconsequential.
Today has 'programmed' millions of us in over the years. If it is not careful, it will turn us off and tune us out.
