It's the f*&^ing economy, stupid

I have a radio alarm clock that pings on to Radio 4's Today program each morning. It's probably the least offensive way of being woken up (listening to Chris Moyles at 7am feels like some kind of blunt instrument invading my inner ear, and Radio 3 is so relaxing it fails to wake me) but the other morning the program editors cut off their Kenya correspondent after barely 90 seconds on air, in time for the hourly pips.

Nothing unusual in that, you might say. But the fact that they had spent the previous twenty minutes exploring the minutiae of implications of the previous day's stock market wobble made it clear where the Today program's editorial priorities lie. The possibility that a few city hedge fund managers may have to take a measly £10m bonus instead of their usual end-of-year £18m wedge is clearly deemed more important to listeners than the supposed "model African nation" descending into machete-wielding barbarity.

Is it because they is black?