Smaller, slower

A brief update on "The Future of News" - Smaller.

BBC Newsgathering needs to save £2.8m from its annual budget. UKIP will be delighted to know that £300k of that is down to increased costs because of the fall in value of the pound. Yet, in the way of the modern BBC, there will be £1m of "new investment".

Some of the gap will be defrayed by a new contract to supply Reuters with video.

Overall, 23 posts will close, 4 will be relocated somewhere unattractive to the current post-holders, and 17 new jobs, many with digital in their title, will be created. The BBC's Bureau in the dangerous and under-reported area of Southampton will be closed. If you can't find a life-raft to continue employment within Newsgathering, you are urged to consider BBC World Service where " a multi-million pound investment in global services will create other new opportunities, some based overseas. We will share more detail as soon as it’s known."

Centrally, James Harding, Director of News, has ordained that The Future of News is slow. This is apparently quite different to that old BBC problem - a slow news day.

 "Slow news is how we help our audiences understand what’s happening in the world today. The BBC is extremely good at reporting the ‘what’, but we need to be better at the ‘why’. What’s missing is slow news: experts identifying what matters; data exposing the forces at work; outside expertise to examine the issues. "