IT WAS a rough week for radio coverage of the Church; so let’s start with a positive. The Bishop of Kirkstall, the Rt Revd Arun Arora, handled himself well on Times Radio Drive with John Pienaar (8 December), talking about Tommy Robinson’s carol service and reminding listeners that the Church had never stopped making Christmas about Jesus Christ. It was quite a gentle interview, however: Mr Pienaar even encouraged Bishop Arora to remind listeners that Christians believe that God came into the world at the first Christmas.
The Archbishop of Canterbury-elect, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, got more robust treatment from News Hour (Premier Christian Radio, 8 December), in relation to the experiences of “Survivor N” and a former diocesan safeguarding official, both of whom said that they had been driven to attempt suicide as a result of the diocese of London’s safeguarding processes (News, 12 December).
Survivor N acknowledged that he had not been perfect in his own engagement with the safeguarding system. There were also issues with some of the former safeguarding official’s criticism — it seems prejudicial to suggest that “bad things will happen” if police and the clergy are heavily involved in safeguarding: surely, investigating potentially criminal behaviour by the clergy must, by definition, involve police and the clergy?
At times, though, this 22-minute piece hit hard. Lucy Duckworth, of the Survivors’ Trust, described the events recounted as a “shocking failure of safeguarding”. A former member of the General Synod, Martin Sewell, said that he didn’t know whether the Archbishop-elect had done wrong, but was critical of the process of investigating Survivor N’s allegations, and located the Church’s problems in a wider context of deteriorating public trust in key institutions.
The diocese’s media consultants, Luther Pendragon, were much criticised. They had assisted the programme-makers but declined to make a statement.
File on 4 (Radio 4, 9 December) dedicated an episode to bullying allegations that have dogged the Bishop of Aberdeen & Orkney, the Rt Revd Anne Dyer, for years (News, 12 August 2022). Neither the Primus, Bishop Dyer, nor any of her supporters was willing to be interviewed for the programme, although one of the latter did supply a statement. Steve Swann tried for balance, but the programme inevitably consisted largely of interviews with her detractors. One telling pattern was how many complainants had found their licences revoked, or their ministry otherwise prohibited, after raising issues. The silver lining was that all of them seemed committed to remaining in the Church.
In the aftermath of Channel 4’s John Smyth documentary (News, 12 December), his daughter, Fiona Rugg, spoke to Nuala McGovern at length on Woman’s Hour (Radio 4, Wednesday), with involvement from Madeleine Davies, of this newspaper. The degree to which recent publicity has been a terrible emotional ordeal for Ms Rugg came through much more clearly on radio than it had on television.
After such a heavy week, it is almost a relief when channel-hopping confronts me with Slade’s “Merry Xmas Everybody”.