As you may know, I started this blog to let off steam, one of my targets was lazy reporting

Well here I am on my second blog and it is about the opposite

I have always been a great fan of radio four’s Eddie Mair. I am also a fan of the Media Show’s Steve Hewlett. On PM (Radio 4, 5.00pm) Eddie Mair is conducting a series of interviews with the interviews with the aforementioned Steve Hewlett. Steve has cancer of the oesophagus and over a period of time they have simply had a conversation about the ups and downs of Steve’s situation. Not you might think, the most either riveting or uplifting of radio discussions, you might think. But you would be wrong.

Sometimes Eddie Mair asks the most difficult questions of Steve, questions that cause one to stare open-mouthed at the radio at time. Steve Hewlett for his part, answers these questions in a measured, interesting, self-effacing way with accuracy, warmth and humour. you feel through these encounters that you are privy to something very special. not prurient eaves dropping (which I suppose in all honesty it is) or the usual attempt to over dramatize beloved of “look at me” no-mark interviewers. No sensationalism or any attempt to pull at your heart-strings. Put simply it is a privileged to listen too.

It has more impact for the simple humanitarian candour of the two guys involved. It has a powerful effect on me and I am sure many other listeners by the fact that you listen to every word as bomb shell’s sear into your mind as you process what appears to be simply a chat between friends, but your brain analyses what you have heard and you realise the gravity and the implication in the same way that a good book, conjures either an image or threat. This is radio of the highest without gimmicks or soppy music, because it needs neither. It is an astute and caring interviewer talking to an articulate and extremely brave man about a subject that none of us want to talk about and teaching us about many facets of the human condition that ultimately is very uplifting

If you haven’t heard it get the podcast. the link below covers all the trait’s referred to above. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04s3kz9

When I get better at this malarkey I will learn how to put a link in properly