by Ed Richmond, Greenbelt Music Coordinator

Grrr, politicians, dontcha just hate 'em?

I work in the media and personally, on one level, I'm very glad that the searing eye of the free press has turned its demonizing gaze back towards the great and good of Westminster so I can have a bit of a breather.

Of course, on another level, I'm not so chuffed at one more example of the mainstream print media desperately shoring up dwindling income by digging deep into its well-worn bag of tricks for a particularly gnarled old chestnut; the moral panic.

Most recently, for a change, it's been us broadcasters of culture, rather than the cultural innovators themselves, that have found ourselves in the spotlight, but in the past Hip Hop, Acid House, Heavy Metal, Hippies, Mods and Rockers and Music Hall (that's right, Music Hall y'all) have all been both the cause and the signifier of extreme moral decline in their day according to journalists.

We do seem to be entering some kind of neo-Victorian era where piano legs needs must be covered up for fear of offending delicate sensibilities. Where the perception of purity is more important than its practice. Where extravagantly budgeted promotional films are shelved because showing them could be deemed offensive in a recession; not 'spending' said extravagant budget, but being 'seen' to have spent it.

Inside production teams, there has been a real fear of being the next neck on the block; an unspoken policy that, 'if in doubt, cut it out'. For instance, a radio producer intimately known to this blogger (ahem) may recently have cut the words 'buck' and 'ship' from a track due to be broadcast on radio because they 'sounded' close enough to offensive language to not be worth risking it. Now I ask you; who do you know that needs protecting from bucks and ships?

Just to be clear, I'm not remotely interested in defending the right to be shoddy, rude, crude, intrusive, lazy or just plain offensive on air. I don't want to dwell on, or belittle the wrongs and wrongs of what happened when Brand met Ross, but am concerned about the fallout and how it shapes our arts, music and wider culture.

On Radio 4 (bastion of all things pure btw) a few weeks ago I heard the excellent nail-on-head quote, "we are more concerned with bad words than we are about good deeds." It's a sentiment that's stayed with me since I heard it, and over time I've pasted 'good arts/literature/music' over the last bit every now and again too.

When booking music for Greenbelt, we as a group often find ourselves applying the 'WHY?' test to acts that may not immediately be obvious choices: have they something challenging to say, do they align themselves to similar aims to the festival, are they pushing boundaries artistically or are they just excellent in their field? We're also keenly aware of the the breadth of the Greenbelt audience, and often strong language is a real concern that we wrestle with.

Now more than ever though, in a culture quick to whiten sepulchers, perhaps it's even more important that we listen to what artists, performers, writers and campaigners have to say, and not get all hot-under-the-headlines because of the language they choose to use.

Ed Richmond chairs the Greenbelt music group and is a radio producer for the BBC in Wales. The views in this blog are his own and do not represent those of the BBC.