Today's show 25/03/11

You know, I just love your web pages. They have a unique blend of looking professional but with inaccurate and misleading text. As an example, your front page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006wr3p) clearly states: "Jeremy Vine and guests discuss the news headlines and talk to the people making them.". I take issue with this on two counts.

First, you rarely devote your show to the news headlines. You may have one or two current news stories, but you will also have discussions on other twaddle that is anything but news.

Secondly, your assertion that you talk to the people making the headlines is rarely justified. It is true that you talk to people involved in the non-news stories, but when it comes to a real news story the first people you usually turn to are not the actual newsmakers but other BBC correspondents or newspaper reporters. If all else fails you call George Galloway for his own special pearls of wisdom. So, instead of hearing from the actual newsmakers all your listeners hear is what a colleague of yours (or a former MP) thinks might have happened, might be happening and might happen in the future. All good for speculation and conjecture, but it does not do much to provide your listeners with hard facts, does it?

 

I'll give you an example: You will remember your discussion about the "International Rescue" team's problems in getting in to Japan last week. In my mind, it was the IR team that were the newsmakers, but you didn't speak to them. Instead you had a verbal fight with a Foreign Office minister. It was only afterwards that you had contact with the IR team and obtained some crucial information from the newsmaker that could have changed your sparring with the Minister completely.

OK... let's look at today's news headlines and which newsmakers you will be talking to...

1) ARE DELROY GRANT'S SEX ATTACKS ON ELDERLY VICTIMS AMONGST THE WORST IN HISTORY? - Did the fact that a sex attacker chose elderly victims mean that his crimes were amongst the worst in Scotland Yard's history? : In answer to your question: I have no idea, and I have no real desire to find out. I'll grant you that this is news, but somehow I doubt you will have newsmaker Delroy Grant in the studio or on the telephone. From your trail on Ken's show it sounds as though your guest on this topic only has an opinion and is definitely not a newsmaker. Next...

2) HAVE YOU EVER QUEUED OVERNIGHT OUTSIDE A SHOP? - We talk to the man who missed his son's birthday to queue outside an Apple store for an iPad 2. Have you ever queued overnight outside a shop so you're first through the doors for a sale? : In answer to your question: No, I have not. This relates to a story from the Metro (owned by the same company as the Daily Mail), so it really is NOT NEWS. Next...

3) PARENTING: CHRIS EVANS - As we prepare for Radio 2's parenting week, we talk to Chris Evans about being reunited with his daughter : How much preparation is needed, exactly? Do you consider that my licence fee being well-spent in providing a parenting week for people who, like myself, have no children? I don't. Again, this is NOT NEWS and is nothing but an advertisement for the BBC's own programmes. Next...

4) CHEAPEST HOMES IN THE UK - And we go to the street in Burnley with the cheapest homes in the country - a two bedroom house can be yours for £22,000 : This barely scrapes through as a mild-interest news story, but who is the newsmaker?

 

So, only one proper "news headline" and no apparent sign of talking "to the people making them".

 

Lies, all lies.