alternative to radio 4?

boisdevie · Post by **boisdevie** » 05 Dec 2014, 13:39

I find Radio 4 less and less impressive for its news coverage - so many journalists and so little insight and real questioning. Just been listening to the collective orgasm over NASA sending a bit of hardware into space and itwas all just blind acceptance - well woop de woop.
So, is there anything else out there as an alternative?

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 05 Dec 2014, 13:53

When I lived in England, Radio 4 was the station of choice for us.

Over here in Ireland, there is nothing comparable - not even remotely comparable: the Irish are a completely different race. They couldn't produce Radio 4 nor would they want to.

But you know, I don't miss Radio 4, not a bit. So maybe that's your alternative: silence. We rarely have the radio on and it's switched off when adverts come on. Books and the occasional browse of a trusted news source are in its place.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 05 Dec 2014, 17:16

The news coverage on Radio 4 has dumbed down to a Daily-Mail-esque level of intellectual analysis over the last few years. This has accelerated over the last year or so with the coverage on Ukraine and Russia to the point where, now, I switch off the morning news whenever it comes on in order to protect my blood pressure.

Lying, bullshitting propaganda; that's all they are fit for now. The only alternative is to cast your media net as wide as possible in order to protect yourself from any one particular bias. I use Russia-Today and Al-Jazeera a lot. I use the BBC hardly at all now unless the news I am looking for is politics free.

3rdRock · Post by **3rdRock** » 05 Dec 2014, 19:49

boisdevie wrote:Just been listening to the collective orgasm over NASA sending a bit of hardware into space and it was all just blind acceptance - well woop de woop.

There was some eminent astrophysicist on the Beeb yesterday, who said - 'We need to explore other planets, after all, mankind can't stay on this one forever".

I swear to God .....

I wonder which planet he's on?

Post by **clv101** » 05 Dec 2014, 21:10

Today was a particularly poor day for Radio 4. I listened to around an hour and this morning they managed to find someone to argue against lowering the drink-drive alcohol level, and this evening they had someone supporting Nigel Farage's comments against breast-feeding in public. As entertaining as hearing folk attempting to defend the indefensible is, it's not what 'flagship' programming should do.

boisdevie · Post by **boisdevie** » 06 Dec 2014, 06:47

clv101 wrote:Today was a particularly poor day for Radio 4. I listened to around an hour and this morning they managed to find someone to argue against lowering the drink-drive alcohol level, and this evening they had someone supporting Nigel Farage's comments against breast-feeding in public. As entertaining as hearing folk attempting to defend the indefensible is, it's not what 'flagship' programming should do.

Yeah, and they can't even get names right. One of the presenters of 'Today' is Mishal Husain who everyone, including other presenters refer to as 'Michelle'.

3rdRock · Post by **3rdRock** » 06 Dec 2014, 11:08

boisdevie wrote:I find Radio 4 less and less impressive for its news coverage - so many journalists and so little insight and real questioning. Just been listening to the collective orgasm over NASA sending a bit of hardware into space and itwas all just blind acceptance - well woop de woop.
So, is there anything else out there as an alternative?

Why not try 'The Trews'?

Home page: https://www.youtube.com/user/russellbrand/featured

Try episode 203: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H46hLibhHA

oobers · Post by **oobers** » 07 Dec 2014, 01:00

Shortfall wrote:Try episode 203

Good episode. He's a great communicator. However, I have this fear he is going to burn out any moment..

Tarrel · Post by **Tarrel** » 07 Dec 2014, 21:13

Actually, BBC Radio Scotland has some good analysis of UK-wide and international stories, as well as local content. I don't know if it's down to the individual reporters, or whether they are sufficiently "in the back-water" to escape the worst of editorial controls, but their reporting, interviewing and analysis seems to be just that bit more incisive, more in-depth and less hysterical than that on R4.

You can listen live on-line. Saturday and Sunday mid-mornings and the morning breakfast show are best.

Apart from that, it's just a generally good all-round station with an eclectic mix of music and chat. A bit football-heavy for my liking at the weekend, and "Take The Floor", the traditional Scottish dance music show on Sunday afternoons is an acquired taste!

jonny2mad · Post by **jonny2mad** » 07 Dec 2014, 22:14

myself I'd rather listen to podcasts or audio books the bbc is so full of bias I just can't stand listening to them, I might listen to them but with a group of other media certainly not on their own.

What I would do is cover a really large political spectrum from very far left to very far right, I personally am interested in any groups talking about breaking up states a lot of the far right are thinking that way . I used to listen to jihadi type sites and podcasts again the idea is to get ideas outside the mainstream and to cover as broad a area as you can . you could look at english language stations from various countrys at odds with your country .

During the cold war I used to like listening to russian stations, before we invaded afghanistan I used to read stuff written by the taliban they had their own websites, Ive read lots of jihadi stuff as well as been involved in forums for countrys like paikistan zimbabwe the falklands loads of places

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 09 Dec 2014, 16:56

Radio 5...... ??

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 09 Dec 2014, 17:52

Monty Don is on Radio 4 with Shared Planet - an excellent series.

The Beeb is dreadful and brilliant at the same time.

All in all, it's probably better than any other broadcasting organisation on the planet, or does someone know different?

jonny2mad · Post by **jonny2mad** » 09 Dec 2014, 19:06

I'd rather a bunch of different individuals to any state run censored channel, you can tell what the bbc is by what happens to someone if they break their PC censorship rules even by saying one word out of place.

They have discussions but they are vetted and screened, if youve ever taken part in a call in programme and been dropped for saying something thats true but they dont want people to hear you will know what the BBC is .

Ive worked off and on for the bbc and in entertainment programmes they are great but no way on earth would I trust them.

I got dropped on a programme about islam when I qouted some islamic scripture that disproved what they were saying about islam, they don't want the truth they are spinning a story

sam_uk · Post by **sam_uk** » 12 Dec 2014, 14:17

stevecook172001 wrote:. I use Russia-Today and Al-Jazeera a lot. I use the BBC hardly at all now unless the news I am looking for is politics free.

I have just been doing a proposal for the news that https://www.outernet.is/en/ should send to the world. I came to the same conclusion.

The proposal I made to them is this: http://www.netvibes.com/samuk#General

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 12 Dec 2014, 18:04

That's absolutely brilliant Sam. Did you collect all those links together?

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