By Ian Macwhirter
HOW MANY BBC journalists does it take to interview the director-general? Thirty-seven, according to the man himself, Mark Thompson. That's the number of BBC journalists who approached him for an interview about his announcement last Thursday on, er, job cuts. Sky News and ITN, he said, made one apiece. No prizes for guessing where the BBC axe is likely to fall first.
In fact, no prizes at all since BBC quizzes are still banned. It has been a devastating week for the broadcasting organisations: the Serious Fraud Office investigating ITV's phone-in scams and the BBC boss admitting, effectively, to gross mismanagement.
Thompson cited the proliferation of interview requests as evidence the BBC could slim down without losing its soul. Why didn't he notice this earlier?
Mind you, he's assuming they all actually wanted to interview him. Many may just have been lining up to schmooze the boss in the traditional BBC manner.
I can confirm from my experience as a BBC hack that duplication is endemic. I used to find myself at news conferences composed almost entirely of BBC journalists. And if that wasn't surreal enough, the BBC correspondents would often even end up interviewing each other.
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