Last updated: 13 april, 2010 - 09:43 GMT

The World Today

From the editor of the World Today, Thomas Dahlhaus:

Are you "hard" or are you "soft" or are you actually a bit of both? What am I talking about?

Well, the subscribers to the am click Global News Podcast which is largely based on the night's material on the World Today are having a bit of a debate at the moment.

Some of them have let us know their preference for "hard" news at the expense of "softer" human interest stories.

And when we actually asked in the podcast how others feel about this, we were swamped with responses.

So far for every one e-mail supporting a focus on "hard" news even if it means squeezing out other stories we've had about two urging us to keep up the mix and include human interest, quirkier, other stories along with the headline news.

A very unscientific straw poll, maybe, and "hard" and "soft" aren't always easily defined, but it's an interesting debate, for the Podcast as much as for the programme.

Light and shade

On the World Today we firmly believe in a mix of light and shade, a blend of the important and the interesting, an element of mischief and unpredictability in approach and agenda that occasionally gets us away from the day's main news or, as was the case this morning, takes us back to it in a rather unexpected way.

We spoke to Dave Fitzsimmons, one of two volunteers from the UK, who are touring the camps in Haiti with a generator and a makeshift cinema to offer some entertainment to kids still bereft of accommodation after the earthquake last year.

Important when seen against much more fundamental needs? No. Headline news? Definitely not.

An interesting way of taking us back to what was probably our biggest story so far this year? I would say, definitely yes and it is, as a listener commented, "combining hard and soft", but judge for yourself: click Listen here.

We absolutely intend to keep up the mix and bring you the news - the breaking stories as much as the ones in the making - as well as odd surprise, for want of a definition comprehensive enough to cover everything from "human interest" to "quirky", "soft" or "light".

Stay tuned and let us know what you think.

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