Saturday, November 18, 2017

Executive recruitment

In the absence of any real information, I fell to musing yesterday on the problems of attracting top quality candidates to pitch for BBC Director of News.

It ran like this. There is no longer a seat for this key function on the BBC's top board. This is despite News fulfilling most of the BBC's key purposes, and employing the vast majority of BBC staff (6596.6 equivalent full time continuing and fixed term employees in BBC News & Current Affairs  at 1st October. This does not include overseas recruits, agency, freelancer and casuals - or staff working for the burgeoning BBC Global News Ltd).

James Harding was out of work when Lord Hall tapped him up. To tap up, say, Lionel Barber at the FT, you might have to make some more promises - perhaps even hint at preparation to follow Lord Hall as DG. Lionel, spookily, has been musing on the future of journalism at the Society of Editors conference. And Kath Viner, at The Guardian has produced a long read on "A mission for journalism in a time of crisis". You'd be forgiven for thinking they could be preparing a presentation for a big interview.

You might try turning to former BBC News executives Roger Mosey, 59 or Mark Damazer, 62. The problem is that, if you bring any these savvy types in, they'd want to be assured they were ahead of James Purnell in any new pecking order. 


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