Heart of the matter | 28 December 2012

Looking back can be fatal and is usually ill-advised, inducing a nostalgia that can only blight what lies ahead. Let’s risk it, though, reliving those radio moments of 2012 (avoiding the Jubilee and the Olympics) when words took shape and became visceral. Most memorable (perhaps because most recent) was John Humphrys’s grilling of his boss George Entwistle on the Today programme on Radio 4. The air crackled with pent-up feeling, as Humphrys, like one of Eddie Grundy’s ferrets, went after Entwistle.

‘You should go, shouldn’t you?’ says Humphrys, after we had heard the then DG admit that he hadn’t seen the newspaper story which exposed the flawed Newsnight investigation. The air was so charged it was as if we were inside the studio and watching Entwistle’s changing expression as he realised his job was not just on the line, but lost. Truly startling, on reflection, was the DG’s frankness, his honest admission of failure.