"Topic records, fRoots magazine, broadsheet and magazine journalists who write about folk (Colin Randall, Peter Paphides, Annie Windley, Colin Irwin, Nigel Williamson), folk music agents (ADASTRA, Alan Bearman, Rob Challice at Coda), staff from Fellside records, folk record shop owners (Whole Wide World, Rocking Chair, Roots2Music), the folk buyers for HMV, Virgin, Amazon and Borders, Living Tradition magazine, festival organisers (Mrs Casey music, Cambridge ff, Trowbridge Village Pump), folk development agencies (Folkworks, Folk South West, Taplas, Wren Trust, TAPS), other broadcasters (Genevive Tudor at BBC Shropshire, the Late Junction presenters, BBC Scotland presenters), large folk club organisers (Nettlebed, The Red Lion in Birmingham), key folk music managers (Nigel Morton, Terry O'Brien, Dave Farrow) and others"

I think you're right Dan

The questions are

1) Are we - the licence fee payers, and therefore the owners of the BBC, and therefore the owners and sponsors of the Radio 2 Folk Awards - happy with that list? Are we comfortable that these people actually know about what's going on, and are not just feeding eachother in some self-contained London-based media ecosystem? Are we at ease with the fact that a good many of those people, (if they are indeed on the panel), can be reasonably expected to vote for artists that they represent, and via whom they may benefit financially from that nomination?

2) Are those people's views even represented by the nominations and winners, and are they ahppy about it if not.