Radio Scope The World Tonight: Trans-racial Adoption, BBC Radio 4, Wed, October 11th
Its coverage of the news that Madonna and her husband Guy Richie have adopted a boy from Malawi demonstrated again the quality that we perhaps take for granted from the BBC.
Two small examples of this quality could be seen in last Wednesday night's coverage of the issue by Radio 4's The World Tonight and in the Have Your Say forum on the BBC website.
The programme spoke to two women who had been adopted across racial boundaries while the forum gave a rare voice to Africans, including contributors from Malawi.
Some Africans believed Madonna would have done better to support the child to stay with his extended family.
But others pointed to the grinding poverty of a country in which even people who are at work are very poor. The latter saw the adoption as giving the boy a great opportunity in life.
The attitude taken by westerners tended to be more dismissive and contemptuous than that of the African contributors. Perhaps it is easier to sneer from the comfort of the West.
The two women, who themselves had been adopted, were measured in their attitude to the Madonna episode. Everything depended, they said, on what was in the best interest of the child. But they did suggest that people whose primary concern was the welfare of children in poor countries should consider what they could do in the long term to support these families so they can keep their children.
Many contributors commented on the fact that the child adopted by Madonna is not an orphan in the sense that his father is alive. All the same, the child, whose mother died from birth-related complications, has been living in an orphanage.
In Madonna's case there is, no doubt, the suspicion that she has adopted this child as a sort of fashion accessory. African children appear to be in vogue with superstars.
Last night, a major question mark hung over the adoption as child protection groups mounted a legal challenge to it.
No doubt the Madonna adoption debate will have died down in days or weeks. And will anything change for Africa?