Ward round

The patient that is World Service got more concerned visitors than it expected yesterday - but is it in a hospice, a recovery ward, or simply sane, but held in an insane asylum ?

Helen Boaden, Director of News, Peter Horrocks, Director of Global News, and Jeremy Dear of the NUJ were on offer at a range of briefings.  I suspect there were awkward moments at all - the patient at Bush House has been contemplating a move to a modern nursing home at Broadcasting House for some time, and expects change. "There, there" doesn't go down well; information is the best medicine. 

So there were apparently some tensions with Helen Boaden. More can see the sense of working as part of news than she might anticipate.  The management side were also keen that any issues with this deal didn't get mixed up with the current ballot on pensions.  A small hope, I think. There were also unsettling glimpses of the future. Peter Horrocks raised the possibility of ads on language websites serving some countries, as with the bbc.com offering, though perhaps not in countries where "the media is not free".  (I'd have thought a few ads might swing Burma round, wouldn't you ? Why not ads, then on the radio, as with BBC World ?). And the new process of deciding what languages over what hours are sustained seems to be a BBC proposal, approved or vetoed by the FCO.    So there's still a crying need for a firm expression of strategy, so that staff and audiences can make their own judgement of the fairness of whatever stays and goes in November.

On the union side, loose-forward Jeremy Dear of the NUJ, would ideally like the patient to walk out, trailing drips and dressing gowns, and demonstrate at the gates of the NHS/No10. Many feel that the BBC top team  was weak or bluffed into this deal. Bush House has been banging on about big salaries, mainly that of DG Thommo, for some time. 

Treatment required; information, a clearly expressed vision for language services, and a radical management pay and grading re-structure across the BBC (not just at Executive Board).