The Sun called it , but on Matthew Bannister's phone-in today on Five Live (listen here), most of our listeners thought the German journalist who asked Madeleine McCann's parents if they had anything to do with her abduction was right to do so.
In fact, many of them wished the ´óÏó´«Ã½ would be more probing. "Statistically, child abductions and murders are nearly always done by the family. Therefore it is fair and valid to ask questions of the McCanns," said one man.
Hostility towards the family is not new and our audience has been largely critical of Madeleine's parents decision to leave her alone in the first place. Now it's their use of the media that is getting to people and I think a desire to fill in the gaps that have been left by the failure of the investigation to date.
Journalists too are under pressure to fill in the gaps, but I think it would be wrong of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to turn detective and put the McCann's under suspicion when the police are not. Better to not cover the story at all for a while.
We managed to upset our listeners yesterday during a series of interviews with rape victims. We were asking if .
According to the experts, the attitude of jurors is a big obstacle in securing a conviction and for many, presenter Matthew Bannister was typical of male bias in his questioning. When one victim described being attacked after inviting a man she knew home for coffee, Matthew asked, "Isn't ‘come in for coffee’ generally code for something else?".
Should he have asked what many people - indeed lots of jurors - probably think? Not according to many listeners who bombarded us with texts and emails of which this was typical: "Coffee does not mean sex just as no does not mean yes. Issues of consent are best addressed by men understanding that women do not need to speak 'in code' and that if they are unsure of what a woman is thinking, the solution is to ask her. I thought your comment about being asked in for coffee was appalling."
There is no topic guaranteed to divide the audience quite so neatly down gender lines as rape. It was women who objected to the coffee remark while men generally thought it was a fair point. I think it's hard to get a consensus on this one. I suspect juries have the same trouble.
"Some opinions are simply wrong and should not be given airtime".
That's what one of our listeners said when we asked on Friday if the ´óÏó´«Ã½ should allow people with minority, radical and sometimes offensive views on air. The ´óÏó´«Ã½'s head of TV news Peter Horrocks was with us to defend his calls (which you can read in full here) for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to take more risks with guests and represent as many different opinions as possible. Interviews with the Taliban and the BNP were examples he gave of things we should hear on air.
My personal view is that he is right, as long as presenters are very well briefed and in a position to conduct a robust interview. There is no excuse for giving such people an easy ride. But ban them altogether? Surely the answer is to challenge them and, in the case of a phone-in programme like ours, give the public the opportunity to challenge them too.
One listener said giving people like the Taliban a platform might help them recruit extremists. But in a multimedia world where such views are widely available in an unchallenged form, isn't it better to test those views on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ rather than pretending they are not there?
But I do have sympathy with another listener who complained that if we have Islamic extremists on air then we give the impression that minority groups are more radical than they actually are. Of course it's not all about race, which brings me back to the first listener who thinks some opinions are simply wrong. She was actually talking about interviewing paedophiles. Would I put a paedophile on my programme? Well we have heard from reformed paedophiles before. But someone seeking to justify their behaviour? Perhaps not, but I'm nervous about ruling anything or anybody out.
The Aussies are rightly keen to ban racist abuse in their cricket grounds ahead of the Ashes, but new guidelines on language are ambiguous on their favourite term for us Brits.
"Pom" is fine - affectionate even - "whingeing pom" (guaranteed to annoy us) is also allowed. "Pommie bastard" is distinctly borderline. We thought it would be fun to link up with an Australian radio station to get reaction on all this.
It's always a buzz to get radio listeners on different sides of the world talking to each other. It's a reasonably straightfoward thing to do technically, but a bit of planning can make all the difference between a smooth link up and a radio disaster.
Time was not on our side on Wednesday morning, and stress levels were soaring in the studio as we approached the agreed time for linking up. I just hoped for the best (not a great way of editing). Victoria was as chilled as ever and happily chatted to her Aussie counterpart and some of his listeners while I celebrated not falling off air.
It was great to hear a few opinionated Aussies on the radio. They can call us what they like as long as they promise to talk to us again soon.
We aim to tap into what the audience is talking about, and with Chris Tarrant's marriage breakdown all over the papers I felt we should cover it on the Victoria Derbyshire programme.
There are always those who accuse us of dumbing down (and several listeners did) but affairs affect lots of us and I was confident people were interested. Not everyone in my production meeting agreed. "Do we really think people will own up to having an affair on the radio?" asked a colleague.
The truth is, I wasn't completely sure, but there's something about the phone-in format and Victoria's style that gets people to open up. Rather than dwell on poor Chris and Ingrid, we asked how someone can possibly live a double life for 10 years.
We needn't have worried about people confessing on air. Perhaps the best caller was a quietly spoken man who told us about his 30-year affair with a married woman. When I asked him off air why he wanted to come on national radio to talk about this he said: "I guess I want to tell someone".
