No place for gnome
The highlight of this morning's programme was getting our reporter, Jon Manel, to smuggle a garden gnome into the Chelsea Flower Show, where such ornaments are banned because they're naff.
Lots of people thought it was very amusing - but the subsequent, light-hearted, discussion between Robin Lane Fox, FT Gardening columnist and Tim Rumball, from Amateur Gardener Magazine on snobbery in gardening, led the former to say: "If you banned fairies you'd have to ban half the garden designers."
Some listeners were predictably offended by such a homophobic comment, and demanded instant on-air apologies. We settled with reading out one cross e-mail and three in praise of gnomes at the end of the programme.
(You can hear the whole episode here, and see the pictures of the gnome here.)
Comments
Why did you not apologise immediately Miranda?
I'm not sure there was anything to apologise for! A programme can't apologise for something they haven't done wrong - OK Robin Lane Fox's comment was not something the programme would have planned. But it was obviously a joke, and not a very offensive one at that. What could the programme have done? Warned Lane Fox that he shouldn't make any ribald homosexuality-based quips? I reckon reading out the email was the right thing to do.
I'm not sure I agree. It's clearly offensive to some listeners otherwise they would not have complained.
The Today programme is responsible for the things its contributors say. The Ö÷²¥´óÐã is the publisher of these comments. If its contributors do something wrong any apology should be issued as soon as possible.
That might be correct procedure. But it's all part of a trend in society that an apology cures everything. (Ken Livingstone is the only person who seems to have recognised this, refusing to apologise for something he wasn't sorry for.) So if Today had apologised, would it have meant anything? Would they really have been sorry for a joke made by a contributor? This mindset is stretching the meaning of the word apology all out of shape. Has any research been done on whether people who claim to have been offended actually feel better if an apology is given?
I'm not aware of any research. But Editorial Policy recently published some "Live Output Guidance" which covers this very subject.
Click here to access it.
"The Today programme is responsible for the things its contributors say."? Piffle. It's a news programme. It reports, not editorialises. It's 'contributors' are potentially everybody in the world - are they to be responsible for everything? It's live too - if you don't want to risk the unexpected, don't listen to a live show. Stick with nice safe pre-recorded stuff. It was enough to make the (justifiably) angry reaction of listeners clear. Further complaints should be addressed to the unfunny journo who made the comment in the first place.