Read this: The Reith Lectures, and From Our Own Correspondent at 70

sounds music Radio podcasts BBC sounds music Radio podcasts and welcome to feedback the focus today is on too long running radio for Staples the Reith lectures made news a few weeks ago after this year's lecturer complained a line about the US president was Ice of the radio broadcast the commissioning editor joins me to explain more and Happy Birthday to fluke from our own correspondent reaches the grand age of 72 the theatre here at Broadcasting House in Central London for this year's reflexes reflectors began in 1948 to mark the contribution made to Public Service Broadcasting by Sir later Lord Reith it was the first director-general every year at this time the lectures or broadcast before an audience then have the chance to

This year's reflected by the Duchess taurean and author Rutger bregman, or on the theme of moral Revolution pregnant explorers, what he calls our current age of immorality growing unseriousness among elites and ordinary people can spark positive change the talks over 4 weeks are intended to stimulate Debate and discussion but not quite in the way that have the shape of the first lecture entitled a time of Monsters was recorded in front of an audience in London but just a few days before it was due to be broadcast on the 25th of November Rutger bregman to social media to accuse the BBC of censorship complaining the line referring to the US President Donald Trump has been edited out of the broadcast version of the sentence removed house prices in other media the BBC isn't repeating it only so I can't tell you what it is.

I'm not surprisingly to feedback inbox was filled with your comments Steve work.

Haven't gone back and listen again to talk.

I believe I can now detect wearing the programme did it was my current political climate notwithstanding is disgraceful that you chose to settle line.

That is entirely the autism and I know where you can be attributed to the BBC programme m or editorial team which were broadcast this in the news program it from Brighton I just seen the doctor pregnant in my listen to with great interest this morning on Radio 4 Reith Lecture censored by the BBC personal was invited to do so in the Spirit of that sentence within the context of his deeply thoughtful and agent come on BBC you can be braver than this and regards from.

I listen to the first part of the reflexes which have been given by the Dutch academic and futurology brackman radio edited out of very controversial soundbite about President in the program.

I would have done exactly the same as the BBC and trouble trump at the moment.

It's a big play my rock and therefore need to be defended weeks.

If not months early the rest of Electro so good that there's editor I wouldn't all of that but the sake of the soundbite well.

I'm doing now by the commissioner responsible for the Reith lectures each year Hugh Levinson you welcome back to feedback lovely.

Thank you for having me you you will be most of the comments that we received a b this was on that one line.

That was cut out of record Romans first lecture the controversial words about the rest.

No, he himself brackman has been very vocal about his shock that those words for edited after the lecture.

Can you explain from your point of view what happened? Just leave a bit of background pictures over 80 years with a long tradition of covering a very wide range of subjects.

Not just political issues, but economics art literature science.

Yeah, you name it said very broad Church I will say and if you look good delivered always 4-in fault with live audience first recorded in London broadcasting them.

We do have a responsibility to ensure all content is editorially and legally compliant and everywhere where I can be hurt around the world which is pretty much everywhere and we took them that decision to remove that one sentence from the first lecture on legal advice, so I do think the integrity of is wider arguments remain Central to broadcast adding anybody listening.

Have no doubt about what he thought over 4 hours of broadcasting at absolutely NRP slots in the morning Rutger bregman.

Said that the lecture had through.

What do you call the full editorial process? So that line was originally signed off.

What changed the legal advice? Shall we do have a responsibility to it is an important thing to do we do have to be legally compliant with that we take that seriously ok, so we change that change with that in lights of the pan the documentary after the president's threaten to Sue the BBC is that white changed stuck into detail of it.

This is what always told us and I'll be there by experts.

I think if you if you wanted to make decisions about Millwall programme commission they probably defer to me when it comes to decisions about the law.

I'll refer to them and with their expertise.

Ok.

See it has been.

The press that was a legal team in Florida can you confirm that I'm not I'm not actually sure all I know it just came back from the programme middle of course little pregnant took to social media and he said the army could not be bigger because this lecture titled a time from Monsters is exactly a b the coward of today's elite has been reflected by some of our listeners and their comments.

How do you feel personally about this decision? Do you regret that it had to be edited after the lecture was given when I delete my personal feelings really hear of her to be honest and what I would say about this accusation of cowardice with in the sense that a conversation about morality and ethics and my mind the law is a separate drive from morality and ethics two different thing.

So I can I really don't think it's that directly relevant to be honest.

I'm obviously it would have just been a lot better for the BBC if that line have been taken out before the lecture was actually giving maybe it would be lovely to have a time machine for lots of things but but better that's get the reflex because of this additive perhaps got more publicity in the present in social media than they have four years as far as I can remember anyway.

I wonder what do you think of any on listenership? And why they're being received it, so it's hard to tell directly I mean certainly what's noticeable to me isn't the feedback we had about the content of lectures off this very wide 4 hours of coverage has been really really positive people engaging as both in their breasts in social media and people and talk to you seem to be really.

A moved and you can quite productive lectures it's also notable that actually the listening figures were having to the Digital a really exceptional so seem to be reaching more listeners, which which is fascinating and everything I say is the national the coverage of it that all the ossicles all the dinosaur included what were quite complementary about the BBC about the TV work with 15 wide like to thank you.

I think you're a brilliant job but one of the aims of the Reef lectures every year to advanced public understanding and debate about significant issues of contemporary interest to actually on one level it could be argued that this debate over the Edit has done just that is that not what the electric should be doing as really intriguing.

That's what I'm here for you what I would say is I think.

Really quite challenging and do take on a lot of assumptions about the way I started by using these historical examples, so I would also is interesting is using both from the left and the right so so the way that he he thinks I think is kind of quite a painting lots of people across the spectrum of opinion and maybe that you know if poss if you come up with his argument was amazing so I wonder if you seem to think that the controversy of this did not over the content of the word for example writing in the Observer showers these lectures with prayers and yet in our feedback inbox has been virtually nothing about the content and that's quite unusual and perhaps certainly people I talk to and what I've seen elsewhere has Union gauged quite heavily with a constant alexa's better series has gone on and I think that reaction.

I agree, I just after series and now had three lectures the fourth one.

I think it's fascinating.

I think once people so we get the scale and breadth of the argument.

I think maybe that will change the three letters that I've already gone out on Radio Forth came first from London then from Liverpool and the furthest from Edinburgh but the final one that we haven't heard yet is coming from Silicon Valley very annoyed anyone heard these lectures will know that the Tech Bros coming for a pretty hard time in the lecture so far.

Can you give us an insight into hi the one went down with the audience? They're actually fascinating.

I'm in look really push that he really wanted us to go to Silicon Valley and we went the belly of the Beast Stanford University which is where you know it's a spiritual and educational home of the Tech Bros and would had industry as fascinating being there because

Everybody can talk about it aaina investment and in the room.

It was really nice leaving them on the students studying other subjects how the changes in technology about strawberry Fortunes have been made and lost about the influence on our Society and the way that we think that sense of being at cradle of change was present in I think people listening to that will get that and starting work was absolutely right to trade us to go that I wonder what did the audience there in Silicon Valley make of discussion about the fact that we need a stronger moral compass.

I don't want to preempt it too much says how are you listening? See what you think but I think it is a fascinating moment and I think there is a perception in and around Silicon Valley the technology perhaps is advancing faster than the guidelines and thinking.

And that was a conscious in the room that there is such a APEL Mail competition to try and be first with this technology the battle the social implications of it slightly limping along behind and so in that sense.

What work had to say was really relevant doing this for a while night.

Are you thinking about next year's lecture already.

Oh yes, obsessively, but we haven't we haven't got any decision.

So it is something this is permanently the back of your mind when you're in this position.

That's perfect.

Thank you very know the first three lectures are currently on BBC signs 4th will Aaron radio for next week and I'm sure anyone has listened to the first three will be keen to know what happens on Bradman meets Silicon Valley no feedbacks annual Search to find the interview of the Year comes to it's conclusion next week in a special program will hear the top 10 shortlisted interviews as nominated by you.

Over the past 12-months and then with a suitably dramatic pause.

I'll be announcing the two runners-up and the overall winner as voted by a panel of listeners nominations are now closed can still comment on anything you've had on any of the BBC radio stations on signs of BBC podcasts for when we return next year easiest way is to send a voice note using what the number is 0345 number again 03333440541 on X and Instagram it's at BBC R4 feedback and you can also send an email to feedback at bbc.co.uk and please do go to BBC signs when you can search for feedback then just click on the link and you get every episode in your feed and you can listen whenever suits tamarind correspondent orphic as it's affectionately known has been running for 70 years.

formula of the program remains unchanged every week foreign Correspondents or journalist working abroad record a 750 word essay about something that's caught the attention of an individual which adds to the texture and understanding of a place for the anniversary with a special program recorded in front of an audience in the BBC Radio Theatre is the first episode was broadcast back in 1955 food has reported from almost every country and kingdom in the world 107 of them just in the last year of primer on from North Yorkshire just want to say how grateful I am to these correspondences so familiar to me and the new generation of BBC Two put yourselves in harms way to enable the rest of us to know and try to understand the world about I have no doubt to doing the jobs to the

No matter how much they love it is a particular favourite is knowledge of the exceedingly complex issues of the middle east is incredibly helpful when I started off going to Wars which was in 1989 in El Salvador I think I mean and like I felt pretty Indestructible and how many many years later and 27th was later.

I don't I feel thoroughly destroyed.

My name is Wendy Susan I live in Bath Radio 4 and home services now all my life, but I must say just how much I have enjoyed from our own correspondent at 70 or recently one of the most famous talk show hosts in Russia has been kicked out of Russia he walks around looking like a defecating squirrel.

Give me a Russia in Ramsgreave Lancashire congratulations on a super program on the corresponding integrity and compassion reporting over so many decades programme alone with supply of from our own correspondent at 70 was hosted by today presenter Anna Foster who has a respondent yourself as reported from all around the world for the BBC and indeed contributed to herself and the current editor of from our own correspondent Richard Fenton Smith thank you so much both of you for being with us on feedback today Richard let's start with this program from our own correspondent 27th listeners as you've heard really enjoyed it, but it must be quite a logistical.

Getting Anna news foreign Correspondents like Jeremy Bowen and lyse doucet who of course of generally all over the world in one place in the Radio Theatre in London and recording it live audience very different from what you normally do is totally different.

I mean you know the team itself.

Is it is just three of us to producers and myself so doing a bigger production of a challenge.

It was great fun and it's not the first time that suits Donna had a sort of anniversary event the last one.

I did was with a big congregation of journalists and somebody wants to flip that this time.

I make sure you didn't through the listener which is why we did it in the Radio Theatre and then we talk about ok, so let's have a panel.

Let's bring in some of the people who have had the deepest connection to the programme people who a real champions of the program.

I find out a couple of emails.

I think I record Jeremy first and he got back to me about 30 seconds saying absolutely I'm in and then least came back very quickly said that I'm busy that day but I'm a

Openshift is her diary and we really wanted to get Steve Rosenberg on because he's a bit of a fan-favorite but we knew that would be the trickier ones because it's really difficult to pull somebody out and then he says I do that happen to be in London that week actually so it was working at really well.

All these people on board then he wants to present her.

I think I could do it also understands the program and then of course Anna steps and then you got back just pretty quickly, I think and also of course he wants to include resource.

Let's do something different and bring her into the panel to because obviously she's got tons of stories to tell if somebody's birthday party.

You wouldn't expect them to host.

It's so nice for somebody else to the admin and logistics a live programme you a little bit of your mind is always someone else so actually be able to come to sit back to.

The stories and share your own I thought that was a great way to put her right at the heart of everything right up until the day really we were slightly biting your nails hoping that you know get pulls away, but it'll work till 5 as a listener.

I think I got the sense that this was a bit of a celebration was it fun to do it was really good fun and that I wanted it to be I wanted it to have that warms and that camaraderie that you saw to get any notice yourself when you're on the road as a foreign correspondent so much of your time spent with these with these people with your colleagues with this small team sometimes and you you know there is warmth and there is human that needs to be when you're covering difficult stories mum wanted it to have that feeling of being with this with the people that knows so very well.

That together we could have done.

I'm looking at Richard we could have done hours, but it wouldn't be in the end, because they got some extra anecdotes, but there is so many stories to tell that really take you to the heart of it and I think that is one of the wonderful things about food because so often in our journalism.

There are stories that we need to tell but those reflections.

They always have a place in the other parts of her out, but they always do Richard we got the census well.

It's so much has changed about the technology that enables channel is black since the program began back in 1955, but this concept of a single voice telling a story has proved to be such a a winning Formula I wonder if the simplicity of it.

That's been part of a success.

I think more so than never actually I think you know we're in a time where you have these conversations podcast you know.

Places to live off the cuff band to type a programs you've got a narrative podcast that have the music and effects all turned up to 11 in and it's really full on and what's its food now is the fact that we are actually quite old fashioned to be quite traditional we go back to the year of radiat was called radio talks and it's 750words.

It's just a voice telling a story and I think there's something very intimate about that and it's the thing that really sets Us Apart these days.

It's something that produces will often stated to correspond as it always something for the little tiny details that you notice and that you retain and I think for those of us, who do a lot of radio and have always done a lot of radium.

You're constantly looking for you because you don't rely on pictures.

So it's not what you see and what you feel and smell and hearing and those tiny details are really important in 1955.

We had on that archive program that we just start tea.

Correspondence, they must have been a little easier to keep track on for the editor of Tramore and correspondent and you don't deploy journalist yourself, they right for you when they're sent somewhere by the news desk or to make a documentary.

Just give us a bit of an insight into how it works.

Yeah, so exactly that sorry tapped into the BBC planning operation, so we know who's going where and when we drop people and in advance saying good.

Have you back on the program but on top of that is not just a bit in front of the microphone in front of the cameras.

We also speak to producers and camera up because diesel jealous to that.

They can also know the great storytellers in just last week.

We had Ben Kavanagh to be Moscow producer on talking about the conversation.

She has when he goes out walking his dog in Moscow so those people play Big parts.

So it's sort of a wider net of BBC's the other really important contributors.

Freelancers we work where there's a yunohost journalist and travel writers that we work with have vitally important because they do get the places which are Off The Beaten Track did you sort your extraordinary unusual stories that you won't have heard about and then and then correspondence will write to us as well and so we'll get an email through from say Hugh Schofield in Paris and say I want to write a book about buying a suit and you think you're all ok.

Let me know he was a great writer and so you let him run with it.

You don't quite know what you're going to get and then it's not just about buying a new suit in fact the whole profile of the Paris political class and how they all look the same so we get the sort of the sort of two-way relationship.

You need a bit of that humour that lightness that someone Schofield can bring in a story like that particularly when so many of the Germans today of being deployed to too difficult and dangerous place.

Yeah, we just need to bring the the light and shade and we're away.

That you know there is an issue these days with what's been turned news avoidance people just fed up with the bad news and so we do try to bring some lightness to that and even stories that you know at the heart of horrific Story Again we sort of try to lean on a human experience.

I think another change that you highlighted in the program in your conversation with Keane was perhaps this idea that personal stories knowing something more personal, but the lives of correspondence has melted into journalism in a way that it didn't use 21 Fergal wrote is Daniel to his son.

It was quite groundbreaking.

It was it really was an unfortunate people that was explored in the programme that the idea that for some people it was too much and they want to know that that level of detail that I didn't want that emotional inside now as you are we.

Different know closer to things and sometimes you need a bit of that person experience to help it cut through and what is also interesting I thinking and showcase is beautiful.

Isn't it? Shows how you can draw on personal experience without moving into things at the BBC doesn't do which is Which is opinion is perfectly possible to share something of without straying into those areas that is BBC journalist.

We don't do it's not about our opinions on things it's about the facts, but I think beautifully trades that delicate line between bring back the curtain and helping you learn something about the journalist that you here all the time but doing it in a way that remains very very true to the principles that Richard cheekily ask if you've ever had to reject a food happens for sure sometimes it just doesn't work out.

I think you'll see what happens when people try to.

How much into the peace so it's around 750words and I think we struggle quote of the people who have say maybe Mayday documentary about something and they want to repeat that story 750words, you need to pick one element and then we go back to the drawing board and usually get it overall.

I know I can't think of an instance recently where we've completely just said no to something.

I'm usually don't know it will come in the commissioning stage.

You'll know whether something is going to work or not and so we try to avoid 100% Richard Fenton Smith and Anna Foster thank you both so much for coming on to know someone who's been a regular contributor to from her in correspondent over the years is the BBC format central Europe correspondent Michigan in Davos one zone mortalis Echoes around the mountains.

I never realise when I first travel there that the village would compel me to to explore it the relationship with life and death as my father.

Convalescing from a heart attack in 1990 he confessed that his father, whom.

He had only seen twice in his life.

They buried somewhere in Davos having died there of TB in 1947 Winchester flavour of Misha Glenny in Davos wasn't there for the world economic forum, but searching for his grandfather's grave and your hearing much more of Misha on Radio 4 next year because after much speculation.

It was announced last week that he is to become the new presenter of In Our Time owing in the substantial footsteps of melvyn Bragg have been at the ever since the program began 27 years ago.

Well.

I'll be for his to hear your feedback and I miss your fits into the new role in The New Year but that's all from me for this week.

Thank you so much for listening and giving us your feedback from BBC Radio 4 uncanny.

I looked and at the top of the stairs was an old man.

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