The 5 Live Report

I'm sure you know about the 5Live Report already - I've talked with Michelle about it during the Online Journalism classes. If you don't, it's definitely worth trying to catch it - it runs for half an hour on Sundays at 7.30 PM on 5Live.

Each show gives the documentary feature treatment to an ongoing news story - subjects covered recently include the growth of cannabis use in the UK (and the dominance of skunk) and the way some teachers now cheat to boost their pupils' results in SAT tests and GCSEs. I like the shows because they generally succeed in making subjects accessible without getting too tacky/sensationalist.

Sometimes the show turns up excellent stories that don't get much play across the rest of the media. About a year ago, I heard a great report into organised attempts to defraud the student loan system. Basically, con artists were signing up at multiple university courses and claiming loans, using stolen birth certificates. The programme focused on one guy who had signed up to around 20 courses at London colleges - often several at the same institution.

The show was a good example of the usefulness of court reporting. The starting point for research on the documentary seemed to be the sentencing of this one con man. The reporter had picked up the story from there, talked to the police then built up the report.

Anyway, it was a great programme. Unfortunately, it's not available any more on the 5Live site. However, you can still listen to some recent shows via the series site and also sign up for the weekly podcast.