The BBC's new Head of News Output, Gavin Allen, has been further gee-ing up his 1,200 operatives with all-points emails. There's an emerging leadership style somewhere between Sun Tzu and Charles Foster Kane. Some readers have shared consequent difficulties with keeping food down.
There will, apparently, be swift action to deliver a "Digital Core".
"I want to explore how we can coordinate beyond your home areas to deliver the best live and breaking services, the best bulletins and catch up content and the best depth and analysis: restructuring and then aligning at every point possible within those three overarching genres to give audiences the type of news they want wherever they want it. Not separate new TV, Radio, or Online initiatives, not programme-centric output, but working together to be relentlessly and efficiently story and audience focused. In all this, digital demands will be front and centre to ensure our best audio, video and written content is delivered and shared online as a priority. We’ll be looking at the right structure within the department to achieve this over the next few weeks."
Elsewhere in the missive: "Every item in every programme has to be clear in its aim to enrich."
And throughout, there are references to "biggest bang BBC News", which turns out not to be poorly transcribed from Gavin's heart, but a pioneering noun adjunct.
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"give audiences the type of news they want wherever they want it".
ReplyDeleteThis seems to have the sub-text of 'giving them any old crap, even if it's not really news'. I smell click-bait.
Your sense of smell deceives you. Audiences want news they can trust. We’re committed to giving them that, in quality and in depth, wherever they consume our journalism. We’ll leave the click-bait (all of it) to others.
DeleteCrisply and clearly put. I'll lay off until things shake down. Meanwhile, can you be put in charge of writing ?
DeleteI am, in terms of those Sun Tzu/Charles Foster Kane (and, in the reply below, Max Headroom) emails. They'd make for a fun dinner party combo if nothing else...
Delete"Digital Core": I do so like the made-up-sciences, as David Mitchell once said.
ReplyDeleteIsn't Gavin Allen that bloke who looks (and sounds) like Max Headroom?