20/03/2015

On this week's programme with Roger Bolton: the BBC's Moscow Correspondent Sarah Rainsford on reporting from Putin's Russia, the Trust's review of BBC music radio and Radio 4's Listeners' Elections.

It's less than 50 days to go until this year's General Election and BBC Newsrooms are delving into the big issues of the economy and immigration. But now, Radio 4 wants to break down the election issues that matter most to its audience. The station is launching 'The Listener's Election'. It calls for listeners to submit stories that put the election campaigns into a more personal context. The BBC's Political Correspondent Chris Mason, who's behind the project, tells Roger how he hopes to reflect the UK's key concerns.

Should Radio 1 and 1xtra be making moves towards including more speech in their output? Does Radio 2 need to vary its specialist music programming? And is Radio 3 starting to sound like Classic FM? These are some of the points raised in the BBC Trust's review of all six music stations. The findings of the review have now been published and Roger talks to BBC Trustee Nick Prettejohn about the review.

The journalists' lobby group Reporters Without Borders ranks Russia at 152nd out of 176 countries in its Press Freedom Index and the Russian authorities seldom if ever talk to foreign press reporters, so how hard is it for the BBC's Russian correspondent to report accurately? Sarah Rainsford talks about the challenges of her job.

And the BBC's School Report set a group of Sussex school children the challenge of turning a newspaper headline into a radio drama. We get a sneak preview of a Royal Pain in the Parkside which finds Prince Harry pursuing a new career - on a caravan site.

Producer: Will Yates A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.