. Tastes vary, and so, in consequence, do opinions about
many items in the B.B.C.'s daily programmes. But on one point there seems to be unanimity—the deplorable deterioration in the last few months of the news bulletins, the standard of which was never conspicuously high. The worst example is the second news bulletin in the National programme, which I suppose concerns more listeners than any other, for the business community is. not usually home for the six o'clock news. Night after night you get the impression of someone trying to do something smarter than give. plain news in a straight-, forward way, and failing catastrophically. The selection of items is thoroughly bad. There is not order and no sense of values. After the programme has , relapsed into its worst puerilities, suddenly a quite important bit of news makes a belated and incongruous appearance —but quite possibly (I quote from last Tuesday's items) the selector does seriously think the fact that a stowaway has been discovered on the ' Ile de France,' or that a street singer has mentioned at a London inquest that he sometimes earns £1 a week, more momentous than the arrangements for the coming International Shipping Conference. As for lengthy summaries from a speech by " Lord Rodney, the raneherTeer ". on community emigration, or the rejoinder of some eminent vegetarian to the affirmations of Sir Robert Armstrong-Jones on the question of whether man is shown by his teeth to be naturally a carnivore, their inclusion in the second news bulletin causes no astonishment—because after a couple of months or so of it nothing would. The " second news " is by a long way the B.B.C.'s most incompetent performance. * *
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