Radio review

In New Kids On the Blog (Radio 4), presenter Matt Frei cast himself as representing a species under threat. "Just how worried," he pondered, "should ageing hacks like me be?" The threat in question is new media technologies and formats, and the impact they will have on the role of journalists.

As if to defend that role, it felt like Frei was trying too hard to embellish his report with phrases and observations that reeked quality; the kind of thing, he seemed to intimate, we might lose if citizen journalists take over. He reached for dramatic, over-excited metaphors, describing bloggers as "the sans culottes who are busy smashing the icons" and went heavy on the atmospheric detail.

Meeting the author of the Punditmom blog in her kitchen in Washington DC, he noted that she made "an excellent cup of coffee". Before talking to Professor Jay Rosen, he mentioned the "very soft sofa". The headquarters of YouTube, Frei mooted, "are as unappealing as a regional tax office". Instead of adding to the discussion and analysis, which was smart and comprehensive once it got going, this indulgent, descriptive layer was like a hurdle to get over. The sans culottes, you suspect, will smash that too.


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