Lord knows what Jeremy Paxman will make of this, but Newsnight is apparently putting its schedule "out there" among the grubby masses (that's us) try and make the editorial decision making a bit more democratic.
This all started yesterday, when Newsnight admitted that editor Peter Barron had been to a blogging conference and promptly decided each morning's editorial ideas should be sent to Newsnight's 60,000-strong mail list. It went something like this:
- Election 2007
- Child labour and cotton
- Dracula
- Anyone got any ideas?
As a consequence of yesterday's experiment Newsnight made space for an extra item on the World Cancer Research Fund report on cancer and diet.
Of course this makes absolute sense and, for the most part, the responses are very sensible. Apart from the guy who wanted to know "who Harry's shooting now?" What a wag.
"We assume those who subscribe are diehard viewers so it seems entirely appropriate that we should ask them what they'd like to see us tackle," writes Barron on the Newsnight blog.
"We won't always be able to oblige - tomorrow for example we have a long film from Mark Urban in Pakistan whether you like it or not - but there's no doubt that what you tell us will help us form our thoughts."
So from now on the ideas will be mailed out in the morning, and updates published on the BBC's blog. Here's how tonight's show is shaping up.
Paxo's not in yet, but no doubt he'll be keen to comment...
Update: Oh yes. It's "an admirable idea!"
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