Letting In The Light

Yesterday 588 people tuned in to watch a webcast of Leeds democracy in action.

That's the number of hits recorded on a new City Council website created in a bid to make meetings accessible to anyone with a broadband connection.

It might sound like a pathetically small number, compared to (say) Britain's Got Talent or Strictly; but putting it another way that's about a hundred more punters than could pack in to see a sellout show at the City Varieties, and it's fair to say any act filling that venue would normally be hailed a success. Not that I'd ever draw a comparison between a Council meeting and a pantomime. Perish the thought.

Bigger Than Leveson?

I have long been an advocate for a rethink of the rules governing commercial radio news.

A year ago I suggested that it was time to relax regulation in order to free listeners from an insipid, unchallenging approach to news in the independent radio sector. Now it seems the idea is being taken up, however obliquely, by the most unlikely champions for change.

I'm talking about the House of Lords.

Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word

I've made a few cockups in my time, on and off air.

I cringe when I think of the brain freeze that led me, whilst covering a high-profile funeral, to get the name of the deceased wrong in a live voicer. On another occasion I booked an interview with a well-known writer and completely forgot about it, leaving reception to make abject apologies.

On both these occasions, and many others, I've apologised when I've screwed up and tried to make amends to those affected. Which is why I get cross when others won't do likewise.

I'll Be Damned

Another arts posting from me in my new role as a Leeds cultural reporter. I say new .. rediscovered is probably a better way of putting it. Bear with me on this.

There was a time when I haunted the original Leeds Playhouse as Features Editor of Pennine Radio. I reviewed every show for a commercial radio audience of .. several. This was the same period, incidentally, during which Marc Almond of Soft Cell was pulling pints of lager behind the bar. Marc was for me, with my sheltered upbringing, the first bloke I'd ever seen wearing lipstick.

Since then I've been an occasional attender as a paying punter to shows at the purpose-built West Yorkshire Playhouse. But last night was my first in two decades to attend in the role of reviewer.

Change for the Better. Eventually.

Change happens, whether we like it or not.

The commercial radio industry has changed beyond recognition from the 'ILR' of the 80s. 
Television has changed even more; if I'd told my grandma that one day we'd have a choice of several hundred channels on a TV as big as our dining table she'd have called me a "daft 'aporth".

Behind the scenes some of the biggest changes have taken place in the broadcast newsroom, and this was reflected in Leeds Trinity's 5th annual Journalism Week.

For the first time we had to put into practice the ideal of multimedia newsgathering using -tada- the Apple iPhone 5. And there's a tale to that.

Radio People

Jeremy Paxman's wound me up this week.

I know that's what he's paid to do, and to be fair he did a good job in his prime of cutting through the arrogance and moral certitude of TINA-era Thatcherite politicians, those whose stock reply to every challenge was 'there is no alternative'. In recent years he appears to have become a caricature of himself.

We must be careful not to confuse the man and his screen persona. However, one would assume off-screen evidence given to the Pollard inquiry (the investigation into why a report on alleged paedophile Jimmy Savile's activities by Newsnight was dropped shortly before it was due to be transmitted) would be free of any of the posturing and stagecraft required by television.
 
It got to me when he went on about 'radio people'. And it got me thinking about them too.