You know when you get so angry you get a temporary bout of Tourette's. It's just ****ing happened to me. First we have the BBC Trust scuppering yet another BBC initiative as they prostrate themselves before the commercial sector. This time it's smartphone apps, last time it was BBC Local - what next? 6Music, Asian Network, half the website? That surely is too far fetched.
Talking of the BBC's web offering it's Eric Huggers blog that makes me really angry. Apart from a comical lack of detail, Eric appears to think managers and staff can be kept in the dark over plans that potentially threaten their jobs. Nothing that comes out of the strategic review around these proposals actually adds up.
They are going to cut 25% of staff - and yet every time they are asked which sites and which staff, they refer to mothballed sites, links that just redirect or pages that haven't been updated since 2006. So we ask the question again - come clean. Which sites and which staff are to be axed. You are paid lots of money. You've had months to come up with the plan. So tell us. Or do you intend to wait until the consultation is over, then spring it on staff and readers.
What a ***king mess.
2 comments:
"First we have the BBC Trust scuppering yet another BBC initiative as they prostrate themselves before the commercial sector."
But Jeremy, don't you also represent members in the same commercial sector that has been raising questions about the BBC's entry into the smartphone apps market?
Don't you think it is right that the BBC Trust should at least examine the issue of whether a free BBC News app is going to have a negative impact in a market where a couple of news organisations have only just proved that people will pay for digital news apps?
Don't you represent journalists working in the commercial sector, too?
Perhaps you'll find some of them are working for organisations who are threatened by the BBC's expansionist policies in new media?
Smartphones are an area where the 300lb BBC gorilla has yet to arrive - and hardly a market that requires state intervention.
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