iPM: Your News
Maybe it's reckless to say so on this particular blog, but we at iPM - the programme that starts with its listeners - are hereby laying claim to a genuine, bona fide, no-money-back-guarantee first. This Saturday, iPM will broadcast a news bulletin made up entirely of your news. Not just your responses to our news, but actual 91Èȱ¬ news based on you. Yes, you.
Each week, we ask listeners to send us a sentence of what's going on in their lives, and the results are alarming, enlightening, funny, and startling. Such as these:
I couldn't face seeing my mother, who has Alzheimer's disease, because I was scared.
My neighbour popped round yesterday to tell me he'd lost his three-and-a-half foot long, black and white snake, he thinks it escaped through the letterbox.
Near Milton Keynes I met Dr Johnson and David Garrick, who were walking to London; together we admired a shopping trolley in the canal.
And, as so often at PM, we don't know when to stop. iPM always starts with its listeners, but this week the whole show is based on stories from the audience, investigated with the help of the Corporation's finest journalists. It will tackle everything from Spitfires and that missing snake, to ASBOs and Michael Palin in 3D. Your news, told by the 91Èȱ¬ allstars.
It's an experiment that we hope to learn a lot from, and we're keen to know what you make of it - so let us know!
New news. Who knew?
iPM is on Radio 4 on Saturdays at 0545, 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer and the iPM podcast.
Joanna Carr is editor, PM, iPM and Broadcasting House.
Comment number 1.
At 26th Mar 2009, silent-majority wrote:I read the 91Èȱ¬ web article on councils loosing money depositing it in Icelandic banks. The article says that councils have about £960M in Iceland banks but that is only 3% of their investments. If that is true then councils have £30,000 M of funds locked away. Now I can understand having some contingency funds but surely this huge amount should be whittled down by reducing council tax? After all it is my money and I would rather have it in my pocket than locked up in council accounts.
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Comment number 2.
At 26th Mar 2009, JustAlanC wrote:Lost favourite programme - Today becomes low level chat show. Giving up on journalism, John Humphries solicited the views of Kirsty Allsop, TV's Estate Agent on an item of national interest.
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Comment number 3.
At 26th Mar 2009, jclcliverichardson wrote:Climate Change Aviation Jatropha Curcas Linn Bio Jet Fuel
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Comment number 4.
At 28th Mar 2009, coolpolitealex wrote:why is the story about George Galloway being banned from entering Canada,
I would have thought that this would be very important news ,ie British MP banned from commonwealth country .
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Comment number 5.
At 28th Mar 2009, coolpolitealex wrote:i love the term moderator "censor" would be more appropriate
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Comment number 6.
At 3rd Apr 2009, b-b-jack wrote:I would still like to know why the moderators suddenly decide to remove a comment?
I do not accept the reasons given as some comments clearly breach the rules.
I agree that some control must be excercised as some people will always abuse a privilege but this seems more like censoship.
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Comment number 7.
At 6th Apr 2009, ajandpgp wrote:What makes the 91Èȱ¬ think Cliftonville has the smallest Theatre?
The VERY SMALLEST THEATRE
is in MALVERN, Worcestershire.
Please check it out.
Tony P.
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Comment number 8.
At 8th Apr 2009, iubikiwi wrote:Re: Moldova :- I'm wondering why as usual there is much turmoil in the poorest country in Europe, and there is so little about it in the EU media.
No comments about the election winning Communist Party and how the majority of the votes counted in their favour are apparently made by many Moldovans who are either long dead, or overseas from where they have no way of actually registering their vote without being back in the country???
Does this not concern anyone that the Russians who are 20% of the population are still controlling more than 95% of the privileged parliamentary positions (including the vote counting and controls there-in)???
Meanwhile the dark hand of Russia who is widely known in the country to be controlling their parliamentary puppets from afar and is now calling for "calm"... why? So they can reinforce their minions and quell the protests by the 80% of the country that were upset but resigned the first time the Communist Party one their first election, insensed and angry the second time knowing half of their country had been 'sold off' to the Ukraine, thereby making them landlocked between Ukraine and Romania (removing their access to the Black Sea and their border with rebellious Poland who were more able to stand against the Russians within). Now a third term? I don't think so! Unless they are counting on the majority giving up to this con once more!
Now is the time to be seen by the world around, and to no longer be ignored as the poor cousin to be hidden away as a lost cause! I wish great success to the majority population of Moldovans that stand against their oppressors and fight for the right to be free from the underground Russian Mafia known as the Communist Party, controlled by Russians from within and from afar! Accept the Russian people, the descendents of Russians in Moldova, but not the communists who have controlled and oppressed Moldovans and Russians alike! Time for control to return to the people by democratic right and not by dishonest vote rigging!!!
Naroc... si sanatate, Naroc.... Fiti puternici, luptati pentru libertatea voastra. Nu lasati Comunistii sa va ia libertatea !!!
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Comment number 9.
At 9th Apr 2009, steffers wrote:A woman was shocked today to find her kitchen sink full of unwashed dishes. As she had washed up everything not half an hour before, the dirty pans and crockery were a mystery. Had a spacecraft landed in her garden, disgorged a hungry alien, who had helped himself to the contents of her kitchen cupboard? A quick scan of the scraps left behind revealed: grated cheese, baked beans, bacon rind, burnt toast, half a chocolate biscuit and a yoghurt pot. The half biscuit at least showed that the alien wasn't a female. A bit of head-scratching later, and the woman remembered - her 19 year old son was home from University again. The same thing was probably happening all over the UK.
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Comment number 10.
At 24th Apr 2009, stephenandrews wrote:I keep hearing about the government's planned Kingsnorth Power Station. The name sickens me! There were a number of deaths associated with the old Kingsnorth power Station, my father amongst them. The deaths were asbestos associated, and litigation, as is the norm, meant that a compensation payment was made but without acceptance of responsibility or corporate culpability by the defendants prior to c court appearance. The authorities that made the decision to keep the name have made a crass & insensitive decision, that only displays the complete lack of understanding embedded in the corporate & governmental mindset of our nation. I understand the need for new power stations, but the management clearly has no idea of the history of Kingsnorth, showing no empathy to those families that lost loved ones because of corporate irresponsibility. If this were a gameshow it would be called "I'm sorry, I haven't a clue".
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Comment number 11.
At 24th Apr 2009, ynda20 wrote:With 640 Architects and Engineers calling for a New Investigation into the THREE WTC tower collapses on 9/11 especially after the latest scientific paper describing the exotic explosives found in the WTC dust!
Will the 91Èȱ¬ dare to report? I know this from professionals - people that know what they are doing rather than politicians - you know those guys that have screwed up the economy, fiddle their expenses and lie through their teeth but I do think they have a point to prove with Mathematics (freefall acceleration of tower collapse), Physics (huge discrepancies with heat and momentum) and Chemistry (exotic explosives found in WTC dust).
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Comment number 12.
At 15th May 2009, lucky-V wrote:Redunancy money confirmed : Plane tickets booked - See you in a few months!
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Comment number 13.
At 27th May 2009, Chris Woodhouse wrote:At last, got the summer clothes down from the loft today - hope it will be worth it this year!
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Comment number 14.
At 30th May 2009, JeemseJP wrote:Who's watching? Surely who's listening and acting, are the real questions for blogs.
There are so many places and so many internet based comments with this, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter etc, etc., that I wonder what you think the point of perpetuating it is i.e. who, if anyone am I writing this for/to and to what end?
What impact, if any, do comments and blogs have on the 91Èȱ¬ that I am primarily addressing. Who's reading/listening beyond the moderator? More communication is not better communication, especially when quality and impact go out the window. Am I wrong in thinking most of the public contributions to the 91Èȱ¬ are therefore very much modern electronic cannon fodder, ending up dead in no-mans land? One hand clapping? It is not interactive. A one-sided conversation. As i write this i recognise its futility.
Here's the point. If I were to say that the 91Èȱ¬, like the Telegraph, was wasting hours, lots on resource and money, and column centimetres on the MPs expenses scandal and on getting politicians, with vested interests to say what their 'solution's' are, instead of promoting a useful Reithian inspired debate about what kind of political system the people want. Most of the knee-jerk reactions from Cameron, Brown and the media are about preserving a two party, morally and philospohically bankrupt system.
The fourth estate has a duty to protect the people from such tyranny, rather than investing time in perpetuating a tyranical system that feeds its own needs and desire for 24 hour babble, celeb, tabloid news, the news making the news, and editors becoming Weberian autocrats in deciding what we should hear. Why not have no editors and let the journalist do their jobs and report not plague us with their views. Just give us the facts and keep your opinios to yourselves please. We'll make up our own minds.
Any chance of setting up a sounding off essay page (for ones like this) instead of determing the themes of each and every blog and again dictating the 'news' agenda. No moderation (nannaying by Aunty Beeb), but warn contributors that they will are legally responsible for what they write. 'Liberation journalism'.
How about a story base on publishing 91Èȱ¬ journalist/commnetators/editors expenses! Particularly the top paid 100 91Èȱ¬ employess/contractors. Is Terry Wogan so poor that the 91Èȱ¬ has to feed him every morning, can't he make his own breakfast like the vast majority of public servants?
And another thing (oh no! there's more), how much does it cost the public purse for all the breakfasts, lunches and dinners, biscuits, teas, coffees and water coolers paid out of the public purse. Significanlty more than MPs have gained in total, by bending not abiding by the spirit of a set of rules of theri own making and therefore they are, by implication, all guilty and all should resign. 650 brand new MPs should give the 91Èȱ¬ and the Telegraph plenty to write about for five years.
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Comment number 15.
At 30th Aug 2009, jenport wrote:I sold a 'Some People are gay. Get over it!' T-shirt to the Chief Constable of Dyfed Powys Police at the Cardiff Mardi Gras on Saurday! - nice man.
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Comment number 16.
At 4th Sep 2009, ynda20 wrote:@11
It is now over 800 named professional architects and engineers asking for a new ivestigation of 9/11.
Check out www.ae911truth.org - and tell me it is not news worthy!
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Comment number 17.
At 12th Nov 2009, moppy wrote:Great, it seemss like we're going to get the (cricket)test matches back on telly, and about time too, now how about doing the same for home rugby union tests?
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Comment number 18.
At 13th Nov 2009, ynda20 wrote:@16,
961 named professional architects and engineers asking for a new investigation of 9/11.
Check out www.ae911truth.org
Check out Sibel Edmonds' sworn testimony "OBL worked for CIA up until 9/11" - at least, 91Èȱ¬ you should be debunking this...
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Comment number 19.
At 4th Dec 2009, shaunmartin wrote:Felt sick at the government again: Christmas bonuses for bankers, Christmas layoffs for Corus.
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Comment number 20.
At 5th Dec 2009, ynda20 wrote:I feel sick again: Obama wins Peace Prize then sends more troops to War. While also lying about the Taliban! (Sure they were not the greatest of governments, but they were firstly propped up by the US to fight the Russians then prepared to hand over OBL, and thirdly had nothing to do with 9/11!)
A senior Taliban minister has offered a last-minute deal to hand over Osama bin Laden during a secret visit to Islamabad, senior sources in Pakistan told the Guardian last night.
For the first time, the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden for trial in a country other than the US without asking to see evidence first in return for a halt to the bombing, a source close to Pakistan's military leadership said.
Stop the War!
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