Raging idiocy: RATM complain at BBC bias

After Rage Against The Machine broke their promise not to swear when they went on the Five Live breakfast show, Sheila Fogarty regained control of the situation with a small joke:

"Sorry, we needed to get rid of that because that suddenly turned into something we weren't expecting," Fogarty told listeners. "Well, we were expecting it and we asked them not to do it and they did it anyway ... So buy Joe's records."

An awkward moment deflected with a small piece of wit. Everyone's happy, right?

Well... no, not quite. Oh, it wasn't the swearing that upset people:

The BBC's complaints website said it had "received complaints from people who felt that Shelagh Fogarty urged listeners to buy Joe McElderry's song."

Perhaps these complainants hadn't noticed, but... it was a battle between one company to see who could sell most copies of a song. It wasn't the general election.

Good god, let's hope these listeners never grow up and start listening to Today - "dear BBC, your sports presenter clearly tipped New Year's Lad to win the 3.15 at Pontefract. This is obvious bias against the other horses and someone should do something."

The BBC, though, is slightly less robust in its defence:

Richard Jackson, editor of 5 Live Breakfast, said it was a "light-hearted spontaneous comment and ... should not be construed as a serious recommendation to buy a particular record".

He added: "This year, in a light-hearted way in keeping with the tone of 5 Live Breakfast, Nicky said he was backing Rage Against the Machine and Shelagh said she was backing Joe. This was in no way a serious endorsement and was never intended to influence anyone's buying habits.

"Regular listeners to the programme would have appreciated this was entirely in line with the banter that is part of the programme's style. We featured the debate on our phone-in and we have interviewed both Joe McElderry and Rage Against the Machine to ensure we have properly covered both sides of the story. David Cameron even gave his view at the end of an interview."

Oh, you asked David Cameron, did you? Why didn't you ask Gordon Brown, you biased gits?

Actually, Alex Salmond is probably already putting together a complaint for the Electoral Commission bemoaning the SNP's absence from the debate.

Staying put: Radcliffe turns down Five Live

In the radio gadabout as Radio 2 shuffles to cope with the disappearance of Terry Wogan, there had been rumours Mark Radcliffe had been going to move to take over Simon Mayo's now-vacant seat on Five Live.

That's not going to happen, reckons MediaGuardian, because Radcliffe has decided he'd quite like to carry on playing records, and he wasn't thrilled that the plum slot, doing the movie programme on Fridays, was still going to be done by Mayo.

There's something delicious - given this about a shuffle required by Chris Evans moving his show - that a major BBC show has been turned down because the presenter wasn't required to work on Fridays.

Mitch fills in for Danny

I'm a little surprised at the decision of Mitch Winehouse to take up an offer to co-host a show with Gary Crowley on Radio London. He's doing the show while Danny Baker is on holiday - just one day, mind, but the list of other co-hosts ( Lucinda Ledgerwood, Phil Daniels, Katie Melua, Clare Grogan, Sandie Shaw, Alison Moyet, Toyah Wilcox, Sharleen Spiteri and David Grant) is an awkward slice of company for Winehouse to be rubbing shoulders with. Nobody would deny him the chance of having a spot of fun, but this does look a little like someone using a sick daughter as a stepping-stone to being a minor celebrity. Unless there's some other reason he's been invited?

Mind you, he is a London cabbie so a phone-in show could just be his natural element.

In other Baker-related news: He's going to be doing 606 all next season. Back where he belongs.

Leave Amy alone, says "family member" again

If Sue - who called up Five Live and asked that the media leave Amy Winehouse alone - claims to be a family member, then we should take her at her word.

But if you want the press to stop talking about Winehouse, wouldn't it make more sense to have a word with Mitch Winehouse - who appears in the tabloids talking about her on a regular basis - rather than the Five Live audience? Or, perhaps, suggesting to Amy that she at least tries to stop wandering down public streets apparently smoking weed?

Winehouse fallout: Gordon takes to the air

A flurry of activity on the radio as The Sun attempts to justify its coverage of the Amy Winehouse stories.

First up was managing editor, the splendidly named Graham Dudman, who ventured onto Five Live to explain how it was all for the best. (A large chunk of the interview can be heard on the Guardian's MediaTalk podcast). Dudman explained how the paper ran the film as some sort of social service - in the hope that the police or, mysteriously, "social workers" would get involved to help her as a result.

Momentarily wrong-footed by a question from Sheila Fogarty, Dudman seemed to suggest the Sun might donate any profits from the issue running the footage of Amy doing crack to help other drug addicts. We'll believe that when we see Rebekah Wade handing over an enormous cheque.

Meanwhile, Gordon Smart popped up on 6Music's The Music Week to defend the story. He kept repeating that it was a great exclusive - although not so great he though to mention Nick Parker, whose byline graced the story in the first place. Smart suggested that, since Amy went into rehab straight after the Sun ran the story, the paper had done a good thing by providing this last, crucial piece of evidence that gave Amy a chance to wake up to what she was doing. It made her admit she was a drug addict, and that she needed help.

However, even Gordon's own tale of events after the pictures appeared - which saw Winehouse pulled into Universal's offices, confronted with a bunch of negative press cuttings (that one guy had spent two days pulling together) and given the "choice" to admit she was hooked - makes it clear that far from being a moment where Amy opened her eyes, it was just the point where her paymasters lost their patience. Because if the Sun's video had made Amy decide to seek help, why would she have needed to spend time at a record company office block looking through a dossier?

The video wasn't a cold, hard dose of reality; it was merely something else for Universal to bounce her into rehab with.

Challenged that some 6Music listeners felt uncomfortable with the paper running shots from the film, and the invasion of privacy involved, Gordon rummaged around for an excuse. Aha! "Amy would take drugs regardless of if there was a photographer chasing her or not" explained Smart. So she didn't care if she was seen, we're meant to conclude, and from this there was no invasion of her privacy because she was behaving as would have in public.

Besides being a weak argument from a logical point of view, it's bollocks anyway - if Amy was always taking drugs when there were photographers around, where are all the photos, then? Clearly, she attempted to keep at least the consumption of drugs private.

Gordon also offered the defence that she went into rehab and thus, the invasion of her privacy was justifiable as "she needed the jolt". And then he tried to argue, again, that Winehouse held some sort of public office when meant the paper was justified in revealing what she got up to behind closed doors - "drugs" Gordon revealed "aren't glamorous; [Amy is] a serious role model [with] a position of responsiblity."

But if the idea is to try and stop kids thinking that doing drugs is cool, then why has Smart (and the rest of the media) run page after page on her drug abuse? Since Amy doesn't publicise her drug use, the only way the impressionable kids are going to know that Winehouse does drugs is because they've read it in columns like Gordon's. If they don't want kids to grow up thinking fame and snort and blow and cash go together like an after-hours party for Man United players, why keep banging on about it? And isn't it a bit hypocritical for Smart - who glories in over-indulgence, awarding a prize for "Caner of the Year" - to suddenly start worrying about role models and bad influences?

Some gentle probing about the source of the video gave Gordon a chance to stress how much he cares again: the tape reminded us how Amy is surrounded by "parasites... characters trying to make money out of her." The same parasites who, presumably, The Sun had paid money to for the footage in the first place. If there wasn't a market, there wouldn't be any parasites, would there, Gordon?

Most laughably of all, Smart promised that - since Amy is being good - her rehab will be "handled delicately". Having had photographer pursue her to the door of the clinic, that seemed unlikely; given that Smart is running a piece on Winehouse 's treatment this morning, we suspect he knew he was lying even as he told 6Music that "she'll get some space now" yesterday lunchtime.

[Thanks to Steve H]

DJobit: Kevin Greening

The former Radio One breakfast show presenter Kevin Greening has died.

The manager of the 44 year-old said Greening died "peacefully" in his sleep, but gave no further details.

Greening would claim that his start in broadcasting came editing tapes for Checkpoint and Roger Cook, but his route to Radio One was more traditional - after a stint on BBC Radio Solent, he joined GLR at a time when the London station was at its sharpest. A brief stint at the start-up Virgin Radio was followed by the move to Radio One in 1993.

Something of an acquired taste - Greening's show was one of the last to employ comedy voices and characters (Raymond Sinclair, Major Hold-ups), making him like an erudite Steve Wright - his career highpoint came when Matthew Bannister was rushing to correct the fall-out from the Radcliffe and Lard breakfast experiment. He was thrown into a double act with Zoe Ball on breakfast, providing the radio experience to partner with Ball's high profile. The partnership lasted only until Ball started to gain in confidence, then Greening was cut free and floated about the schedules until his contract expired in early New Year, 2000.

There followed a long period where Greening struggled to find a permanent niche - a year at Five Live; some time at London Live (the renamed GLR) where he found himself playing the same role with Amanda Hussein as he did with Zoe Ball at Radio One; Jazz FM, Heart; a surprisingly successful stint at Xfm before winding up at Smooth in London. Greening's trouble was he was a man who had a unique style at a time when commercial radio is obsessed with smoothing out any sign of individuality; he was, effectively, out of the time when he would have flourished.

Winehouse's brother appeals for calm

Alex Winehouse, brother of the more infamous Amy, has appeared on the radio to ask for the "media to cut her some slack":

“Through all this battering she’s getting from the press, no one seems to bear in mind that she’s a human being just like anyone and she has feelings and she’s been through a really tough couple of months.

“She really wanted to do [Birmingham] because she felt she owed it to the fans, and she did her best to get through it.

“But come one, she’s been through so much in the last few months and weeks and I guess it really got to her, I think she should be cut some slack.”

It's a curious approach: rather than suggesting to the people pumping her money-making arm that she not be constantly forced onto stage, Alex instead asks that people not point and shout when she's there. But, really, when you're suggesting that someone should be given bonus points for actually bothering to turn up and play a gig that they've already banked the ticket money for, you should probably be asking if 'media coverage' is actually the root of the problem.

Alex then goes on to reveal that, probably, it doesn't matter if the media cut her slack or not:

Asked whether the negative press upsets the troubled star, Winehouse continued: “I don’t think she really pays any attention at all."

Ah. So this is less about worrying about the human Amy Winehouse, and more about trying to protect the public perception of the Winehouse brand, then?