There’s no tomorrow for Today any more
WELL, that’s the final nail in the coffin of the Today programme. John Humphrys, just about the only reason for still tuning in, is stepping down sometime this year. He’s 75, an age at which many people will want to retire. He’s also come in for some grossly unfair criticism over his salary (he’s one of the few who merits it) and all round demeanour, but could it be he’s decided to step down because Today is turning into such dross?
In its heyday, Today was required listening. Blisteringly sharp reportage combined with forensic interviews held the great and the good to account, with the presenters the absolute cream of British broadcasting. Brian Redhead, Libby Purves, Peter Hobday, Sue MacGregor were just a handful of some of the best broadcasters of their generation.
James Naughtie was not to my taste but he still had what it took. John Humphrys is the only one left from that glorious golden age. The current lot are perfectly all right but you wouldn’t go much further than that.
But it’s what’s happened to the content of the programme that’s so awful. As noted here previously, it’s full of fatuous quizzes that no one cares about, “nature notes” as if this were Farming Today rather than a news programme and what seems to have become an unconscionable amount of pop music recently. This is Radio 4. We do not want pop music. That is the remit of Radio 1.
It is happening across the whole of Radio 4: constant dumbing down in search of the “yoof” listenership (actually pretty insulting to the yoofs) and a collapse in quality as a result. And there is an ominous precedent here. Exactly the same thing happened to Newsnight, prompting another of the big beasts of the current affairs scene, Jeremy Paxman, to stand down. Look at what’s happened to Newsnight since. Totally irrelevant, its very survival must be in doubt. When Paxo left, apart from an assortment of Dimblebys (also thinning out), John Humphrys was the last man standing. What a loss.
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A NEW report says that men who have smoked marijuana are more fertile than those who have not. Is this really true? Just what we need: a younger generation sired by zonked-out dads who are too out of it to do anything in the line of actual fathering. Mother Nature is having a laugh.