The move to cull reporters who work directly to daily BBC radio news and current affairs shows, like Today, The World At One, PM and The World Tonight, has hit the Sunday papers again.
The core issue is control, not numbers. BBC Newsgathering is a past expert at closing down 'pools' of staff, marginally refining their job specification, making the current occupants either apply for their own job (risking the ignominy of being deemed not up to it) or get so cheesed off they volunteer for redundancy.
Newsgathering can't see the point of anyone other than themselves appointing and controlling reporters, keeping tabs on everything they do. They've always resented reporters on Newsnight, Panorama and Today. This time, they're picking off, largely, Today, with the argument that Newsgathering boasts many under-employed staff with brilliant stories you'd really like - why would you need anyone else ?
The correct answer is to reduce the numbers of underemployed reporters appointed by Newsgathering, ringing round programmes with diary story ideas that don't really cut the mustard.
The current logic, if fairly applied, would see Nicholas Watt, Gabriel Gatehouse, David Grossman, Katie Razzall, Stephen Smith, Helen Thomas, and Mark Urban all re-apply for their Newsnight gigs.
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