Here’s an email which is doing the rounds:
The other day, just back from filming, I was on the phone to a friend, describing the situation as I saw it: ‘One of the main problems is that those at the top have lost touch with young people: they’ve no idea what young people want or how to communicate with them.
‘It’s hard to see who is really in charge these days, with loads of meaningless sub-divisions competing for money and influence. The bosses surround themselves with incompetent loyalists so fearful are they of being stabbed in the back by their supposed ‘colleagues’. Meanwhile the man who is supposed to be in charge spouts his robotic edicts, but nobody is listening, so he tours the regions promising to fund this or that grandiose project – but where the money will come from is anybody’s guess. The high minded ideals when the thing was started… have gone by the wayside, replaced with a brazenly populist agenda.
‘Unemployment is a worry for everyone, with some people having to do the equivalent of three jobs just to make ends meet. It’s just a very, very difficult atmosphere to work in – and as a journalist you just feel the axe could fall on you at anytime.’
A colleague overhearing me said, ‘Fair enough, but if you feel that way, why not just leave the BBC?’ Which was a bit sad really, as I’d been talking about the regime in Iran.
Darius Bazargan, producer/director, news and current affairs”
