Tonight I carried out an experiment on my LBC show. I think like many people, I am often frustrated that the news agenda is remorselessly negative. Bad news is news, good news is advertising seems to be the mantra on most newsdesks. Just read the Daily Mail if you don’t believe me. I have never believed that to be true. I think people like a bit of balance in their news and there are times when you need a little light among the shade. After this week’s gloomy Eurozone news I thought I’d take the plunge and conduct a Good News Hour.
To be honest I was a bit nervous about doing it. My gut instinct was that it would work, but the nightmare would be not to get a single phone call. I may like the sound of my own voice, but for an hour?!
Anyway, as luck would have it there was a great story about a flashmob on a train to Watford breaking out into song, singing a Bill Withers song and at the same time, a man called Adam King proposed to his girlfriend. So that got us off to a good start. I had already got LBC newsreader Holly Ford to record a “Good News” news bulletin, which worked well, apart from when we first tried to lay it out we just got the music and no words. Nick Abbot, who follows me, reckoned it was comic genius to have a news bulletin with no words, until he realised it was actually a mistake.
As it turned out we had absolutely loads of calls, texts and emails from people who wanted to relate something good which had happened to them. I had a quick chat with my team after the show and we reckon in future it should be a brisk 30 minutes where we do a Good News Bulletin, relates on or two good news stories from the week and take a few calls. We’ll see. If you heard it, what did you think?
