Fine blogger David Hansard appreciated this morning's Sunday special from Nigeria.
There was a bit of a sting in the tail to his compliment though. He tweeted, "Turned on BBC R4 Sunday expecting the usual identity politics fare, but was pleasantly surprised to hear an excellent programme-length special about Nigeria, with Edward Stourton. Includes interesting interview with Femi Anikulapo-Kuti".
There was a bit of a sting in the tail to his compliment though. He tweeted, "Turned on BBC R4 Sunday expecting the usual identity politics fare, but was pleasantly surprised to hear an excellent programme-length special about Nigeria, with Edward Stourton. Includes interesting interview with Femi Anikulapo-Kuti".
"Turned on BBC R4 Sunday expecting the usual identity politics fare" sums up my expectations of the usual Sunday programme too but, yes, this was very good from Ed Stourton.
Incidentally, a couple of other tweets from David are worth quoting too. This one comes from Thursday:
A brief discussion with Peter Hitchens on the BBC's Today at 7.50 am, about free speech at universities. Good performance. Introduced by Justin Webb as having "strong opinions". Outside the BBC they're known as reasonable and commonly-held opinions.
Justin did indeed trail the feature by calling Mr Hitchens "a man of strong opinions on a variety of subjects".
A programme from Nigeria *is* BBC identity politics fare. The BBC is obsessed with Nigerians, always contriving to have them on Radio 4, on Woman's Hour for example, and today managed to find one for the front row of the Nicky Campbell (anti-religion, disguised as one of those special BBC 'questions': Is religion good for your mental health?) discussion programme on BBC 1 today.
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