Thursday, November 30, 2006

Public Service Broadcasting At Its Best

I've just been listening to Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 talking about cystic fibrosis. He took a call from a lady called Jane whose ten year old daughter has just been diagnosed with the disease. The poor woman was in tears and totally distraught. Vine then brought a lady called Lesley into the conversation. Lesley has CF and is 36 and was at least able to offer Jane some words of comfort. Jeremy Vine handled a very difficult broadcasting situation brilliantly.

Earlier in the piece Nick Robinson recalled Gordon Brown holding a CF fundraiser at No 11 two years ago. A video was shown demonstrating the effects of the disease and the Chancellor was in tears. Robinson asked his film crew to stop their cameras.

This half hour piece on the Jeremy Vine show was a brilliant example of public service broadcasting at its very best. Credit where credit's due.

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

'Grandad, can you remember where you were and what you were doing the day Iain Dale complimented the BBC?'

Anonymous said...

Fair play to them Iain.

Unfortunately this one instance of quality has to be weighed up against:

admitted bias to the left
recycling press releases as news
stealth editing online articles
denying access to the Balen report
general poor quality journalism
excessive repeats
radio 1 in the afternoon
dumbing down
typos & grammatical errors

et cetera
et cetera

Anonymous said...

Does cystic fibrosis trump whatever's wrong with Cameron's poster kid?

Anonymous said...

Without wishing to be churlish or to disparage what was undoubtedly, from your description, moving and informative for all concerned, I do not see why the fact that the BBC is a public service broadcaster had anything to do it. It could equally have been any broadcaster, irrespective of ownership or method of funding.

Anonymous said...

I have to say Iain, I don't like the licence fee, (though it was a good thing when first introduced) but I think the BBC does seriously keep other broadcasters on their toes in this country.

Without them I am sure some of the other commercial stations would go downhill. So perhaps the licence fee is not that bad.

Dr.Doom said...

You're on the 'A'list and you have complimented the BBC?

Remember Iain, the BBC is a Labour dominated organisation filled with Communist, trotskyists in the pay of Fiels Marshall Putin of the Politburo in the Kremlin.

How do you expect to get selected talking such gibberish?

Doom.

Anonymous said...

CF is a terrible thing. I wonder if Brown will stay on as a member of parliament ? No doubt he will want to stay close to his son's hospital in Scotland. At least he may be able to combine his constituency job with that .

Anonymous said...

Interesting that Project Fraser launches at the same time as the Charity Commision opens an inquiry into the Smith Institute, and that the person speaking for the Browns is the wife of the Smith Institute's most famous alumnus.

Machiavelli's Understudy said...

I had to re-read that a couple of times before realising that you meant the chancellor was holding a Cystic Fybrosis fundraiser at Number 11 and not the *other* type of CF...

Anonymous said...

You're going soft in your old age Iain!

Anonymous said...

If this gets posted no doubt people will bitch at me.
So what if Browns child is ill?
Unless you are a friend of his or a member of his family it doesnt matter to you, this is just mawkishness.
Spare some tears for the tens of thousands of Iraqi Children who are dead or maimed thanks to Browns support for the invasion of Iraq.
if I say anymore this most definatley will not get posted

Anonymous said...

Why is Brown's child of such interest to the nation that everyone is supposed to care? Brown's just a self-seeking, self-serving, paranoid politician and a particularly sleazy one at that.

The thought of his home life gives me the creeps.

Anonymous said...

Benedict White said: "but I think the BBC does seriously keep other broadcasters on their toes in this country." Oh, give me a break! This is one of these "envy of the world" fantasies.

Other countries don't have the BBC, for which they are devoutly grateful, and things called "free enterprise" and "capitalism" take care of the quality of the programming. I'd rather watch Fox News than the twisted, perverted, Britain-hating, lying garbage the BBC spews out in its news spots.

Anonymous said...

Tom, you probably look up 'antithesis' in the dictionary before you use it in a sentence again . . .

Anonymous said...

Just goes to show that the Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation can get it right ever now and then!

*Insert obligatory note on lefty media and the dangers thereof*

Anonymous said...

Why do I get the impression that Verity has a womb like a dried fig? For once in your life close those pursued lips and keep your rancid little opinions to yourself.

Anonymous said...

It is sad that any child should be born ito a world of potential suffering and early death. However, Mr Brown has the advantage of living in Scotland where blood tests to ascertain such a disease are done routinely at birth. The poor lady with the ten year old child just diagnosed had no such luxury! Something is amiss when we feel sorrow for a politician who by virtue of his elected seat is in a position to influence the lives of English children.

Mark Gambrill

Anonymous said...

Jeremy Vine no thanks. Nic Clarke yes. We are getting mawkish here. Touch of the Lady Di's creeping out of the woodwork. BBC should be cut down to size. 4 channels for TV and four radio stations including World Service. Anything more is vanity and self serving.
If you have spare tears shed them for the parents of ill kids who get buggerall support rather than red carpet treatment NHS dishes out to political masters. I know a little of this subject.

Anonymous said...

Do we know what specific genetic variant Gordon Brown's kid has?

It would be good if he could people that as it would raise awareness of genetic treatments.

Knowing what your genetic variant is and where is it in the gene is the biggest factor that will determine if or which genetic treatment will be available to him.

If he has a point variant that causes a stop codon then a drug for CF is going into stage 3 trials that skips stop codons at a rate of 5-20%, called PTC-124.

NOTE : Use the term "genetic variant" not "genetic mutation" - as this will cause offence.

Anonymous said...

verity - 'I'd rather watch Fox News'

'nuff said...

Anonymous said...

Yeah, when you think of the overall quality of BBC compared to the shite put out by commercial radio it makes an unopposable case for public service doesn't it.

I get loads of people on US websites who want to tell me how great BBC America is.

Some things just cannot be done properly for profit.

Anonymous said...

I heard this prog, and I wasn't nearly as impressed as Iain says he is. Probably because I don't much go for emotional incontience in public, and when distraught mothers call in to blubber over the radio at the public in general, one has to wonder why the hell they feel that they have to inflict their 'pain' on everybody else.

A distasteful combination of exhibitionism and voyeurism.

Anonymous said...

Ian Thorpe - BBC America is free? I don't think so! The British sit still for a lot, but I don't think they want to bankroll entertainment for Americans. I could be wrong but I don't think BBC America is public service broadcasting.

I agree with Griswold. Touch of the Lady Di's and compassion thought fascism creeping in here. As before, I'm not joining in.

Chris Goodman - why is it that men who cannot abide dissenting opinions from a woman always start insulting her sexuality? How weak and pathetic is that? If you are unable to respond rationally to my opinions, you would do better just to keep your council. Other, more mature, men who disagree with me respond rationally without getting personal.

I advise you to tread warily.

Plus, by insulting a fellow guest, you are abusing Iain's hospitality. If you can't grow up, at least mind your manners on someone else's property.

Anonymous said...

So Gordon Brown is going to spend more time with his family.....................much relief in Merrie Olde England

Anonymous said...

Isn't Nick Robinson's decision to take the camera off GB editing? He knows what is best for us to see?

Anonymous said...

I stopped listening to the Jimmy Young spot when the gimlet-eyed hysteric Vine took over. In fact I don't listen at all in the afternoon what with Vine and Steve Wright. If I wanted their type of verbal twaddle I'd go to a commercial station.

I am sorry for Brown as I am for others with sick children but what it has to do with me I know not. Be careful of mawkishness. I often think how the crowd hysteria forced her young boys to public display at the funeral.

Anonymous said...

Verity,

Although your charmless remark “Does cystic fibrosis trump whatever's wrong with Cameron's poster kid?” does imply that the milk of human kindness has long dried up, my speculation that you are childless is a reference to your lack of feeling not to your oestrogen levels.

You cannot reason somebody out of callousness.

Anonymous said...

Can anyone hear Mr and Mrs Blair condoling with Mr and Mrs Brown in their tragic circumstances, and agreeing that they will struggle on for two or three more years to give Gordon the chance to be with his family?

Anonymous said...

Chris Goodman - You must move in a very small circle. A cross section of the public, represented on this blog only by me and one or two others, it seems, has a heart of stone a propos Gordon Brown's family problems. His family problems do not erase the damage he has done to hundreds of thousands of lives through his raiding of pensions. These were people who thought they had made provision for themselves.

I do not wish his child any harm and I am sure he will live a normal life, but as far as Brown himself is concerned, I have a heart of stone.

I did feel passingly sorry for Brown when his first child died, but that was before he had had a chance to apply his communist principles to a robust economy. Actually, on reflection, I felt sorry for the baby.

The little boy with flaxen hair looks healthy, though.

towcestarian said...

Verity

Please allow me to join you in the small band of stone-hearted dissenters who think this is a complete load of touch-feely drivel. He is a politician not a film star - who really gives a toss about his private life, its his public one that is important.

Talking of which, I'm sure the bastard was not in tears when he screwed up my private pension, so I will reciprocate with a total lack of sympathy for his family problems.

Anonymous said...

Towcestarian - Welcome to our small, insensitive party of people who don't give a toss about Gordon Brown's "tragedy" - which isn't a tragedy. Gordon Brown had the ability to wreak immense harm to the British economy and the British people, and he did. His personal life is his business.

Although I feel sorry for the child, I have no interest in the angst of Mr and Mrs Brown (who is woven into the warp and weft of ZaNuLab through her former pr partnership with that Hobsbaum woman whose father was a raving mad communist.) They're a tight little group of destructive people and I wish them ill.

The flaxen haired little boy in the Brown household looks robust, though.

Anonymous said...

Thank goodness Gordon Brown insisted on his son being born Scottish in Scotland, where the NHS test every newborn child for this disease.
If he had been British and born in one of the Regions, it would have remained undetected for perhaps years, because the "English NHS" cannot afford to test all newborn babies born here, due to the funding restricions placed on it by............. Well, waddya know - it was that Scottish chap, Gordon Broon himself!!!

And you lot cry for Gordon? Where is Gordon's humanity for OUR children?

Anonymous said...

Towcestarian,

Who gives a toss for the private lives of films stars for that matter? Surely something like this isn't supposed to be paraded over the front pages. I suspected that this was released purely to try and make the PM-hereafter look more human in the eyes of the electorate.

But then I read that Guido's going big today on a possible "good day to bury bad news" angle to the story.

If that's the case, then I'm not just hard hearted, I'm positevely disgusted.

Andrew Ian Dodge said...

But whose to say a non-public service broadcaster could not do such a show? This is just good broadcasting...where it comes from is irrelevant.

Anonymous said...

This thread has been strangely quiet today. Oh, dear! Where did all the sympathy for the Browns evaporate to?

Anonymous said...

I'm trying to work up some Brown sympathy but if I'm honest I'm with you on this Verity.

Anonymous said...

I think those criticising the BBC need to get out a bit more - specifically, out of the UK more. I've lived in countries on several continents and in my opinion the BBC, whilst by no means perfect, trounces most countries' public sector broadcasting hands down.

And no, I don't work for the BBC.