The Radio 4 Blog Feed

Anna’s War: telling the truth in the face of grave danger

2014-02-03T16:03:03+00:00

Editor's note: Elena Kudimova is the sister of the murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Anna's War is this week's 15 Minute Drama series and is inspired by Anna's life and writing. Listen to Anna's War on weekdays at 10.45am from Monday 3 February.

I had quite mixed feelings about writing a blog to support this series. I’ve never done it before. I’m so old-fashioned that for me it feels a bit like an act of exhibitionism. But my inner voice kept telling me in a strong manner: "You still haven’t written Anna’s biography, life keeps you busy with other things that seem more important to you. You have to!"

Anna Politkovskaya

My inner fight didn’t last long until responsibility - which I reckon is our family trait – won. And with some encouragement from my friends, here I am.

My name is Elena Kudimova, I’m Anna Politkovskaya’s sister. We grew up together in Moscow in the 1960s and 1970s, and were very close until we both married in the late 70s and our lives took different paths for some time.

I’m very happy that Radio 4 have decided to make this drama series based on five episodes from Anna’s life. It’s extremely important for Anna’s children, my mother and myself to keep her memory alive and let people know what she was standing for, quite often on her own.

Since she was killed there were attempts to make a film about her life in Hollywood, but these have not materialized. There have been several documentaries about her life made in various countries. Each tells something about Anna’s character, so the more coverage she receives, the better. Each producer’s perception is different, each finds something new in Anna’s character and her life and altogether these programs help people to get a better understanding of Anna’s life and beliefs.

In Moscow the second trial is taking place now. Last week, both of Anna’s children; first Vera, then Ilya – were interrogated in court once again. I don’t feel bloodthirsty anymore as I felt at the beginning. You can’t raise the dead from the grave, but justice should be eventually done. We have been waiting for it for more than 7 years now.

The investigation is going very slowly, and if they don’t manage to find who killed my sister within 10 years the case can be left unresolved. That would be very frustrating for the family.

While Anna was alive, our parents and I tried to persuade Anna to write about something else. Why write about Chechnya or the North Caucasus all the time? Russia is a big country and there are more than 140 million people living there. They too had problems. But she knew that Chechnya was the most vulnerable area at the time and ordinary people were subjected to a lot of stress and suffering there. She just couldn’t fail these poor people who had usually tried all other means to find justice before they came to Novaya Gazeta with their misfortune or grief.

Her human rights campaigning continues to inspire many people around the world. Her friend and colleague Mariana Katzarova founded the organization RAW (Reach all Women) in War, and every year since Anna’s death they present an Anna Politkovskaya Award to the most amazing women who work in areas of conflict. Last year the winner was Malala Yousafzai, the extremely brave and very articulate girl from Pakistan who was wounded in the head by the Taliban for her fight to give girls the right to go to school. There is also an Anna Politkovskaya award for journalism in Italy.

My sister has become a symbol for the fight for freedom of speech and for the fight for basic human rights which are deprived from people in war zones.

I do hope that Anna’s work is a constant inspiration for young journalists. She was very strong as an investigative journalist. Yet I don’t want even one more journalist killed because of their professional activities. They are still being shot every year trying to bring their readers and listeners the valuable truth about the events around the world. They realize the importance of the truth. I believe, like a doctor’s first rule is not to harm, the first rule for journalism should be "truth, nothing but the truth." This was of course also Anna’s belief.

Listen to Anna's War

Listen to the Woman's Hour tribute to Anna after her death, including an interview with her from 2004

Listen to the Woman's Hour update on her murder trial from August 2013

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Feedback: BBC’s medical correspondent Fergus Walsh on the MMR vaccine reporting

2013-04-19T14:20:52+00:00

Editor's note: The BBC’s medical correspondent Fergus Walsh discusses how medical stories are reported. Listen to Feedback from 19 April 2013.

Needle and vaccine

“Totally discredited”. That’s how the BBC’s medical correspondent Fergus Walsh, and his colleagues, describe the alleged connection between the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine and autism.

Don Benson, a Feedback listener thinks a different term would be appropriate.

He thinks it would be better to say “has been widely rejected within the British medical hierarchy”.

He thinks that “BBC journalists should be cautious about accepting opinions from the medical hierarchy as unquestionably true and free from undeclared interests or bias”.

Who should we believe? Some scepticism is understandable. We were assured for some time that all was well in Mid Staffordshire before the horrors of some of its (non) care were starkly revealed. Then there is the running controversy over the Leeds heart hospital. One leading heart specialist said he would not send his child there for an operation. Others maintain it is perfectly safe and has a fine record.

Also many of the greatest breakthroughs in medicine have come through the rejection of current orthodoxies and in the teeth of opposition from medical establishments.

Many, perhaps most, journalists have an ingrained scepticism about authority, and when there is a debate about a medical controversy there is an understandable tendency for broadcasters, committed to impartiality, to offer all sides equal time.

However as Professor Steve Jones pointed out, in a report commissioned by the BBC Trust, this can be misleading.

“According to the Economic and Social Science Research Council survey, at the height of the panic” (about a MMR/autism link) ”most people felt that because both sides of the argument had been given equal time by the media, then there must have been equal evidence for both (although by then the result had been thoroughly discredited by experts)”.

I remember, how could I forget, in my own family at the time of the original “scare”, a particularly vigorous debate about whether our daughters should have the MMR vaccine. They eventually did so.

There is no easier way for a media outlet to fill space than by running a health scare story together with emotive coverage of the allegedly affected children. Often they are grossly inflated, sometimes entirely false. Yet some of these “scares” can be justified. Remember the long Sunday Times Thalidomide campaign which was triumphantly vindicated?

All of this means that I was particularly interested in talking to Fergus Walsh in person. Here is this week’s Feedback interview.

The BBC's medical correspondent Fergus Walsh on recent MMR vaccine reporting.

Next week’s edition of Feedback is the last in the present run, and most of it will be given over to listeners questioning the Controller of Radio 4, Gwyneth Williams.

If you have a question for her please let me know. Otherwise I will have to ask all the questions myself and surely you would not want that!

Roger Bolton

•Listen to this week's Feedback

•Get in touch with the programme, find out how to join the listener panel or subscribe to the podcast on the Feedback website

•Read all of Roger's Feedback blog posts

Leader Conference: What will the papers say?

2011-07-06T14:40:00+00:00

Editor's update: There are some great pictures and a summary of the discussions from the first programme in this series of Leader Conference on the website - PM.

Tonight Andrew Rawnsley chairs the first of four live studio debates called Leader Conference. The programmes will follow the format of the main daily editorial meeting that takes places at many of Britain's leading newspapers, known as the leader conference. It's where the senior journalists get together to argue about the editorials which the paper will publish the next day are going to say - whether it's a Times leader or what The Sun Says.

Leading articles are one of the most important features of any newspaper's pages. Yet how they come to be written remains essentially a mystery to all but the participants.

We aim to cast light on that process over the coming weeks. But this is also debate to a purpose. As with most newspapers, we're going to talk about three subjects in the news which we think are important. Often - but not always - one topic will be domestic, one international and one will look at the news in a lighter vein. At the end of each discussion one of the journalists will be invited by Andrew, in his role as editor of what we might call The Daily Rawnsley - to summarise what the leading article will sayâand why.

Over the coming weeks, Andrew will be joined by top figures from across Britain's newspaper industry. These will include writers from the tabloids and the broadsheet papers, from London titles and those based in other parts of the UK, from those with a right-of-centre political perspective and those with a left-of-centre one.

The Daily Rawnsley has no allegiances. Its readership is the Radio 4 audience and what matters in Leader Conference is the persuasiveness of the arguments that are made not the force with which they are put. That is the essence of live discussion - but here there is a premium on resolution of the debate to reach a settled view on the issues.

One thing this series won't be is a dour survey of tired old opinions. Andrew Rawnsley will present an entertaining, often amusing and always lively programme - helped, we hope, by Radio 4 listeners. We'd like your views on what our leaders should be saying. You can e-mail us at: leader@bbc.co.uk or join us on Twitter at #Radio4.

So, let the debate commence...

Hugh Levinson is an editor in BBC Radio Current Affairs

Leader Conference starts on Wednesday 6th July at 8pm on Radio 4 and runs for four weeks.
You'll be able to listen to it online on the Radio 4 website shortly after broadcast and for seven days after that.
To join in on Twitter use the hashtag #Radio4 or you can email the programme at leader@bbc.co.uk
Find more Radio 4 factual programmes to listen to online

Analysis at forty

2010-10-25T13:12:02+00:00

The BBC is famously good at marking anniversaries. Wars, coronations, Darwin's birth, 'Dad's Army.' So it is right that the fortieth anniversary of Radio Four's Analysis, which takes place this year, should be marked in some way. It was at 21:15 on Friday 10 April 1970 that the voice of the urbane Ian McIntyre was heard presenting the very first edition of the programme, "Next Tuesday sees the annual enactment of a classical piece of British folk ritual. Budget Day ranks with the Grand National or a deciding Test against Australia."

For students of radio, those who think that radio, and in particular its history, is worth studying, Analysis is high up the list of significant programmes. I think the reason can be found right at the very beginning, in 1970. Interestingly, the first Analysis was broadcast on the day that Paul McCartney announced the break-up of the Beatles; the end of one era, the 'swinging sixties' and the beginning of a new, more serious times, and Analysis was most certainly serious. Ian McIntyre as presenter and his producer, the formidable Hungarian émigré, George Fischer, took the Reithian values of the old BBC very seriously indeed and gave Analysis a deep commitment to the highest standards of research.

One of my favourite editions of Analysis from this period featured Ian McIntyre in Egypt and began in typical style, "A great place for jokes Cairo. I suspect they have a certain therapeutic value; without them the chaos that is Cairean traffic and the inert mindlessness of the bureaucracy would drive everyone screaming up the walls of the Mohammed Ali mosque." A year earlier, also in tourist mode, McIntyre had visited Salisbury, the capital of the former Rhodesia, which got a similar treatment, it was "an agreeable town" with "better curio shops than most cities in Southern Africa" and McIntyre was not one to ignore "the glory of the jacaranda trees."

An article of faith which underpinned the early Analysis was a deeply held commitment to radio itself. Throughout its 40 years, the programmes has been based on a belief that radio, uncluttered by pictures and carefully-manicured presenters, does the job of explaining the world better than any television programme. Which is not to say that Analysis has never had its stars; most notable of these was Mary Goldring who was the main presenter from 1975 to 1984. Her first Analysis in May 1975 began in her famously direct style, "Did you vote in local government elections today? Did you even know that elections were going on outside Northern Ireland?" Mary Goldring probably deserves the accolade of the foremost current affairs broadcaster of her generation and she used Analysis as her main platform. She was not afraid to be outspoken; in 'Whipping the Cream' in June 1981, she made it perfectly clear that she would close 'failing' universities, that the government failed to do so was due to "the vestigial awe of universities" we have and as a result, "the government has lost an unrepeatable opportunity to throw some redundant institutions to the wolves." Ouch!

Analysis today remains Radio Four's most authentically intellectual programme. Listening to Michael Blastland present the most recent Analysis I felt the founding fathers would have recognised in that thoughtful, unadorned and truly 'analytical' edition the qualities of thorough research and rigour to which they aspired, 40 years earlier.

Hugh Chignell is Associate Professor of Broadcasting History at Bournemouth University

Listen to tonight's 40th anniversary edition of Analysis, presented by Michael Blastland, an Analysis producer from the 1990s and now a regular presenter, and produced by Linda Pressly.
There are pictures of early presenters and producers on the programme's web page. Also an archive episode, presented by Ian McIntyre, from 1971.
The picture shows McIntyre in 1977, during his time as Controller of Radio 4

From Fact to Fiction - recording and editing

2010-06-11T16:38:31+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sn68s

Editor's note: the five day sprint from idea to completed drama is over and tomorrow afternoon you'll be able to hear the results of the 'From Fact to Fiction' team's labours - a topical play inspired by the news. Today Matilda James finishes the story - SB

So our third actor did say yes - and we were cast by Thursday lunchtime. Final drafts came in mid-afternoon and scripts were emailed out to the cast ready for an early start this morning.

We're recording in studio S6, Bush House, kicking off with a readthrough at 9am. Doon Mackichan and Eliza Caitlin Parkes are our freelance actors, to play Jessica (part-time PR officer for a charity) and Kerry (her cleaner) respectively.

Sam Dale, who is playing Felix, Jessica's husband, is a member of the BBC Radio Drama Company and his acrobatic gymnastic ability will be called upon later on as we realise we need to recreate the half-time commentary at a football match.

First of all though, the readthrough goes really well - the actors' understandings of the characters match each other and those of Gurpreet and Abigail, and the duration is pretty spot on - once it's all edited, with music, scene transitions, annos etc, we've got an absolute maximum of 13-and-a-half minutes duration to fit the Radio 4 slot.

And we've got 3 hours to record it all - it's always a bit tight for time recording From Fact to Fiction, as there's a World Service programme that uses the studio at 1pm for a live transmission. And Eliza's got to learn the words to Lady Gaga, and we've got to record some rowdy nightclub drunkards (involving willing volunteers from the office upstairs) so things need to go to plan.

The SMs (Studio Managers) have been searching for paving stones for a scene on the doorstep (not that easy to find in a news studio) and we've got a selection of bottles (lots of bottles), crockery and cutlery to make up our spot effects. We start recording, and it sounds great - lots of drinking and bottle clinking and trying to get the perfect wine-bottle glug. Gurpreet, Abigail and the actors talk over small line amendments, and I mock up some commentary for the scene where they're watching the England v USA match for Sam to voice up in his best Alan Shearer voice - can't be too specific or refer to any match results, as none have happened yet! We decide we don't need any extra recording of people being drunk as there's plenty on Grams (the sound effects library) - apparently bars are favourite places to go hang out and record, who knows why.

Yesterday, Thursday, was the day of the debate in the Scottish Parliament. We've kept an eye on the developments during the week - the opposition added a wrecking amendment on the subject of minimum pricing, but this will now get debated again before anything gets ratified into law. There are links to more information on the news story on the programme's web page.

And so this afternoon, producer Abigail and Pete, the SM, are editing. When they're done, it'll be checked for compliance, then I'll listen through to it, and send it over to Radio 4. And it'll go out tomorrow evening, and again on Sunday. Lovely. All in a week's work... Now, as soon as those last boxes are ticked, we're all going for a drink!

Matilda James is Broadcast Assistant on From Fact to Fiction

Gurpreet's From Fact to Fiction is on Radio 4 at 1900 on Saturday 12 June.

From Fact to Fiction - all systems go

2010-06-09T17:05:43+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sn68s

Following our initial meeting on Monday, writer Gurpreet Bhatti delivered a first draft this morning. It's amazing what the From Fact to Fiction writers do in the time we give them. Gurpreet's already found her characters and the shape of the play.

She's stayed with her original choice of news story as inspiration - minimum pricing for alcohol, which is being voted on by the Scottish parliament this week. In the spirit of the series, her play uses the emotions and issues at the heart of the news story as its motor - it's about a woman who becomes unhealthily involved in the life of the student who cleans for her.

I discussed the team's notes on the script with Gurpreet this afternoon, and now she's hunkered down producing draft two, while we cast and get hold of the right music. It's a three-hander, of whom we currently have two confirmed - crossing fingers for the third!

I've also gone through the first draft with our SMs (studio managers). There'll be two of them working on it on the day - one 'panel' SM, who records the actors, and one 'spot' SM, who makes sure all the right props are there making all the right sort of noises and the right times. We record most of our dramas in a lovely studio in Broadcasting House, full of wonders: not just stairs, but stairs that lead somewhere! A working kitchen with running water! A spot FX store full of everything you can imagine that makes a noise!

We record FFTF in a much less glamorous room in the bowels of Bush House, so we need to be careful the scripts are actually achievable with our resources here. My last FFTF featured stairs in a big way, a mistake I won't be repeating!

Roll on tomorrow morning, with draft two and (hopefully) a 'yes' from the third member of our cast...

Abigail le Fleming is producer of From Fact to Fiction

Gurpreet's From Fact to Fiction is on Radio 4 at 1900 on Saturday 12 June.
Picture by Mikey. Used under licence.

From Fact to Fiction - making a topical drama

2010-06-09T08:00:23+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sn68s

Editor's note: From Fact to Fiction is Radio 4's topical drama series. Each play is written, recorded and broadcast in a week, in response to the news. Producer Abigail le Fleming takes us through the process, starting on Monday morning. We'll publish further snapshots from the process between now and transmission on Saturday - SB

In the hot seat this week is award-winning writer Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti. She came in to Bush House on Monday to pore over the newspapers with us as we picked up and rejected various stories. David Cameron's speech warning of drastic changes to Life As We Know It was on all the front pages. Gurpreet thought perhaps she might spin off this story with a play about a young couple with a child on the way, anxious about the future. I was struck by a story in Saturday's Guardian about covert surveillance cameras in Birmingham, to which Gurpreet responded with a lovely idea for a comedy about a man who installs CCTV in his house to monitor his family. But the cuts/pregnancy story was feeling a bit general, and we didn't think the CCTV story would still be running by the time we go out on Saturday.

Lucy Proctor from News stepped in with a very useful run-down of the news diary for this week. We discussed and rejected Gaza (too huge), Cumbria (too intrusive), Bhopal (not really current enough, despite the recent convictions). We knew we couldn't touch the World Cup, as that's being well-covered already. We talked for a while about the Labour leadership contest - could we satirise this by dramatising it as a tale of principle vs ambition in a less rarefied context than Westminster? Perhaps a charity where the employees are all scrabbling for that golden promotion?

Lucy was clearly taken with the fact that this week marks the end of the International Year of the Priest, but that was just such a delightful thing in itself we didn't think it necessarily needed to spin off into drama.

What really interested Gurpreet from Lucy's list was the issue of minimum pricing of alcohol, which is being debated by the Scottish parliament on Thursday. As we talked about this question, it seemed to chime with other stories this week: people being paid to recycle in Windsor, people being paid to lose weight/give up smoking elsewhere. And it poses some questions - can you really control people through financial incentives and disincentives? Is the new government really striving for less of a 'nanny state' than the old one? The issues of power and control here really fired Gurpreet's imagination, and she's gone away to cook up a first draft.

Abigail le Fleming is producer of From Fact to Fiction

Gurpreet's From Fact to Fiction is on Radio 4 at 1900 on Saturday 12 June.
The pictures were taken in the radio drama offices in Bush House.

Responding to big stories at Radio 4

2009-06-28T19:07:08+00:00

We've thrown things up in the air in recent days in a bid to respond to two big stories - MPs' expenses and the disputed Iranian election.

Last Thursday evening John Simpson did 'The Report' - our new Current Affairs strand. He spoke about what it was like reporting from Iran this month before he was evicted - but went much further by providing the depth of political analysis that you cannot get anywhere else on the BBC - and certainly not at this speed. The joy of radio. John has been reporting on Iran on and off for 30 years - so when he spoke about ex President Rafsanjani's role there was most of a lifetime's work involved in reaching his conclusion.

Three weeks ago Nick Robinson and I were talking after one of his interviews on Today about the expenses story. We were just chewing the fat. Nick was being self-conscious about what it felt like reporting it - how adrenalised, important and difficult it had been. So we cooked up a plan to do a 30 minute documentary about it - and to do it quickly. Nick and his producer Martin Rosenbaum set about it - in between Nick doing his daily job - and produced quite one of the best programmes - titled 'Moats, Mortgages and Mayhem' - we've broadcast since I got the job. I leave you to make your own judgements - but I thought it brought real insight into the difficulty of political reporting and analysis - and also included an interview with The Telegraph's editor - Will Lewis. That's the first time he's spoken in public since the paper hit the journalistic jackpot.

And this week - more Iran. In 2006 we ran a season of programmes on Iran - 'Uncovering Iran' which had as its centrepiece a 3 part series by Sir John Tusa (former Director of BBC World Service and a great Newsnight presenter) about the history of Iran with a lot on how and why so many Iranians despise Britain. John and his production team have updated the series and we will be repeating this new version on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week at 1100. It's good.

These programmes exemplify what makes Radio 4 what it is. The best of BBC talent doing things they couldn't do elsewhere on big stories and doing it brilliantly and rapidly - backed up with talented producers. I felt perhaps a little unseemingly proprietorial - but very proud.

Listen again to Nick Robinson's Moats, Mortgages and Mayhem
Nick Robinson's Newslog and his short post about the programme (with a lot of comments).
John Tusa's Iran: A Revolutionary State.
Picture, duck house, by Circulating. Used under licence.