Tim Maby, who worked at the BBC for 35 years, on the end of the BBC Radio newsroom.
November 6, 2007 7:00 AM
It looks like the breakup of the old BBC Radio newsroom with the announcement that the corporation's TV, radio and online newsgathering operations are to be merged. Furthermore, 25 journalists are be moved out of the radio newsroom to Radio Five Live and will presumably depart London for Manchester in a couple of years, writes Tim Maby.
This is the final stage in a process that began with then director general John Birt trying to homogenise BBC News at the beginning of the 90s.
Veterans like me think that the decay in the quality of BBC radio journalism really set in when radio and TV news were brought together in the same building ten years ago in Television Centre in Shepherd's Bush, when radio had to leave Broadcasting House near Oxford Circus.
The bosses accused us of simply bewailing the loss of lunchtime retail therapy. But reporters found they were less able to put late interviews in decent quality on The World at One and PM. Presenters like Nick Clarke less frequently conducted their interviews face to face, which lost a certain frisson. Remember Neil Kinnock stomping out of the studio because he didn't like being accused of failing his party?
Read more on this story from the Guardian Unlimited at:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2007/11/the_bbc_radio_newsroom_a_fond.html
Photo: BBC.co.uk/Suffolk)