Among the less tolerable flaws in western quality journalism is the tendency to fixate on an important story for a week or so, giving it blanket coverage,and then to forget about it. This rarely means that the story has simply stopped. It can mean no more than that editors have decided it is no longer interesting. It can mean that access to news has become harder, particularly when foreign correspondents have been expelled from the relevant location. On occasions it can even mean that the story has actually ceased to be interesting. I don’t think Iran has become dull or unimportant, but I know the security crackdown has made it hard for Iranians to participate in protests and that western correspondents have been expelled from the country. So, I am indebted to The World Tonight (Radio 4’s hidden gem) for bringing detailed news of the latest street protests in Tehran. It seems the spirit of reform is alive and that Iranians, though frightened of their government’s propensity for violence, are too courageous to abandon their hopes for a more tolerant future.  The Today Programme followed up this morning with a fine piece by Angus Stickler. Angus’s work shows how effectively a good radio reporter can pull together details of a foreign story to which he cannot travel by using a contacts book a telephone and a studio just like the one in the CfJ.