At the heart of UnHerd’s analysis of the power of today’s 24/7 news industry is our concern at its bias towards the new over the important; the negative over the positive; the controversial over the consensual; and the political over the technological, cultural and, indeed, over other upstream influences on our times. It’s the subject of our four minute launch video. Here is what ‘Today’ on BBC Radio 4 might look like if the country’s most important current affairs programme explored addressing those biases. If you have better thoughts for overhauling the programme please click the ‘HAVE YOUR SAY’ button and we’ll publish a selection of the best thoughts we receive.
7am
News bulletin
7.07am
Standard news report or interview
7.12am
A review of the newspapers but also a canter through a few national and international periodicals with selections chosen by the BBC’s arts, technology and diplomatic editors
7.18am
‘Mind the gap’: interview conducted by a local BBC reporter in one of the BBC’s many studios around the country… with a headteacher, small business person, trade unionist or similar community-focused figure on an issue that the reporter feels is overlooked by the London media
7.26am
Five things that happened in Parliament yesterday
7.30am
News & sport summary
7.33am
‘Today’s yesterday’ feature: two historians examine latest developments in the context of major events in the past
7.39am
Head-to-head review – two insightful figures from politics, business, education, science or culture talk about a book they’re both reading, or eg a play or film they’ve both seen, and what they’ve learnt from it.
7.48am
The utterly forgettable ‘Thought for the day’ scrapped and replaced with ‘contrarian of the day’ (so long as the contrarian aims to bring more light than heat)
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe