This article is taken from the August-September 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

A friend who once edited a newspaper in Todmorden, where red rose meets white, had a particular foible. Every time the office received a press release from Yorkshire Television proclaiming the talent of “the irrepressible Mollie Sugden”, he would reach for the blue pencil. “The lady is all too easy to repress,” John would say, striking out the adjective.

“The irrepressible Sugden,” who was from neighbouring Keighley, became the kind of joke Kingsley Amis put into his novel, Girl, 20, where General Franco was (irony alert) “a Christian gentleman”. In real life Amis mocked public utility companies which sent out bumf promising “exciting offers”.

Those linguistic horrors! In the modern media world a public figure has only to complete a dozen years of hustling before the dubbing begins. “National treasures” are found in the most unlikely places. And let’s not forget the “I” word. Anybody who can touch their toes without going in the fetlock is “iconic”.

So it was no surprise to hear Tina Brown introduced on Radio 4’s Communicating with Ros Atkins as “the legendary editor”. Speaking in that mid-Atlantic voice, honed over a thousand lunches “up Madison, down Park”, the lady played the role she has triumphantly made her own.

She has certainly held down some plum jobs, helming Tatler and Vanity Fair before taking over the New Yorker, where many readers felt she was a touch overparted.

Others cheered her on, delighted by the wailing of earnest American writers getting their bottoms spanked by a British journalist who thought jokes brightened the day. Brown once sent back some copy to the notoriously turgid novelist, Isaac Bashevis Singer, with the request: “Beef it up, Singer.” That’s worth one cheer at least.

Still, “legendary” puts an egg too many in the basket. If any editor was legendary or iconic amidst the muck and nettles of journalism, it was probably the man Brown married. But Harry Evans came from Ashton-under-Lyne, where that kind of talk is likely to earn a clip round the ear.

Atkins, one of those people who talks incessantly about talking, has emerged in the past couple of years as a BBC pooch. Along with another tail-wagger, Katie Razzall, he presents the weekly Media Show, which purports to investigate the doings of the Fourth Estate. Journalists talking about journalists is not necessarily the most productive way to spend an hour.

For indulgence, though, the 15-minute Communicating with Ros Atkins takes some whacking. “It’s worth making the time for clarity,” he said during his audience with Lady Tina. Heavens! If we do, “we give ourselves the best chance of communicating”.

This is cat on the mat stuff, passed off as profundity. Who else did the BBC’s “analysis editor” interview, to learn the secrets of this murky trade? A comedian, a chef, a doctor, a teacher and Martin Lewis, the money expert who will never be mistaken for the Invisible Man.

Young journalists will learn nothing from this drivel. Nor will listeners. If the BBC wants its journalists to speak and write clearly, there is no need for self-help manuals, and certainly none for programmes with titles like “Communicating”. Just hand ’em a collection of George Orwell’s essays and a few novels by Evelyn Waugh, and say “that’s what clear writing looks like”.

In Scoop, still funny after all these years, Waugh created the Daily Beast. Mrs Evans borrowed the paper’s title for her own devices, with some success. It’s been a good act, but like many “legendary” performers she has trod the boards too long. Beef it up, Brown.

It’s still a bit early to offer a considered view of Radio 3’s latest overhaul, other than to note the grotesque English spoken by so many presenters.

Of one thing we may be sure. Private Passions, the Sunday lunchtime fixture, has not benefited from the provision of another 30 minutes. An hour was always good enough, and it remains good enough. The programme now rambles.

Also, the guests are not as good as once they were. You’re not going to get a cracker every week, but too many of Michael Berkeley’s guests this year have been bores. In the case of Sathnam Sanghera and Dorothy Byrne, they have been self-important bores. Sanghera can talk about only two subjects, colonialism and himself; and Miss Byrne, the erstwhile dame of Channel 4, clearly thinks she ranks alongside Lord Reith.

Berkeley, a sympathetic host, struggled to get anything interesting out of them, though Brian Cox (the stargazer, not the actor) and Frank Gardner, the war correspondent, threw him a few fish. The other Cox has also been a guest. A bright man, and a wonderful actor, he disappointed with his selection of music.

Head and shoulders above them all was Ray Cooper, the percussionist. A modest chap, who has spent a lifetime working with performers across the pop and classical worlds, his love of music and gratitude for the doors it has opened was evident in every sentence. An hour is good enough.