The fate of the BBC’s Jonathon Ross could be decided this afternoon at a specially convened meeting of the BBC Trust, the corporation's governing body. 

Listening to various BBC radio programmes as the story developed this week, I have been struck by the incredulity of various presenters that the incident has become this big. With varying levels of success in their attempts to be impartial, and often blaming other media with an anti-BBC agenda for whipping up a response out of all proportion to the offence, they seemed stunned by the amount of complaints, which now numbers over 30,000.

Suspicions regarding the BBC’s own agenda, of course, have been aired in the blogosphere and by licence-fee payers on the website’s own Have Your Say forum for some time now. And the rumoured £18 million wage paid to Ross has also attracted its share of the criticism.   Not to mention the faked competitions, phone-ins, and the Queen's strop that never was.

So the presenters may be bewildered by the response, but the signs of discontent have been there for many months now. I think there is an element of opportunism at play here; many thousands of the complaints must be from licence fee payers for whom this is just the last straw and they have taken the chance to give Ross and the BBC a bit of a kicking. Brand’s attempt to be the fall guy could come to nothing yet.

It all comes down to the bottom line – we’re paying (a lot) for this service and we expect better.

Reporters Sans Frontieres has released its annual world press freedom index, and the UK has improved its position on the list; it’s up one place since 2007 … and is now ranked joint 23rd with Hungary and Namibia, out of 173 countries. Joint 23rd! And the US, that other so-called great bastion of democracy, is even worse, ranking 36th.

Among other things, the index measures freedom of speech and information, the treatment of journalists and media ownership. It’s a disappointment that two countries that present themselves, in many ways, as leaders of the free world, perform so badly on those measures.

Top honours, by the way, go jointly to Iceland, Luxembourg and Norway.

Among all the economic doom and gloom, one piece of news that probably didn’t get the attention it warranted was the end of the controversial 42 days detention proposal, which their Lordships kicked into touch this week.

For reasons I’ve never fully grasped, this dangerous proposal was apparently popular with the public – possibly that section of the public which still thinks that the provisions of the bill would have been used solely against terrorists (see my previous blog here).

The Lords themselves have taken quite a kicking over recent years, for being pointless and pompous, unelected and out of touch, but I personally think they deserve a round of applause on this occasion.

Is this yet another nail in the coffin for newspapers? Plastic Logic has produced a lightweight yet tough and durable electronic alternative to newspapers that allows you to download hundreds of papers and magazines.

My initial thoughts were that it might be a bit too gimmicky to catch on. It certainly wouldn’t be as convenient as a paper to carry about. Although the company highlights the amount of waste generated by newspapers on a daily basis, a large amount of our newspapers must be recycled one way or the other, not least by people leaving their newspapers behind on trains and buses for others to read; something the BBC reporter considers a particular benefit.

I might have agreed with him, had I not then read about this research, which, if it is to be believed, means that avoiding anything that has been in the hands of your fellow commuters might be for the best. Perhaps the marketing campaign could feature the hygiene benefits of having your very own plastic paper!