BBC Overmanning
The amount of overmanning at the BBC is amazing. I recently spotted the following positions on the BBC World news site: Head of Statistics, China Media Analyst, Global Health Correspondent (one Tulip Mazumdar – no I did not make that name up!), Environment Correspondent, Health Reporter, Environment Analyst, Science Correspondent along with some bigfoot names simply referred to as the BBC´s Fergeal Keane and Zenab Badaweh. A couple of items were attributed to BBC Persian and BBC Marathi, presumably language services which the BBC provides free of charge to Iranians and Indians. These are just the tip of the iceberg. Don´t get me started on the cushy sports jobs.
Why do you need an environmental analyst when you already have an environmental correspondent or a China Media Analyst when you have correspondents in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong? This is a waste of money as all the news is available from agencies like Reuters, AFP etc. which the BBC subscribes to.
The “social media”, which is free, also provides lots of duff stuff which the BBC presents. Here is one abysmal example which is basically an Instagram pic of Serena Williams beating an innocent wall by slamming a tennis ball against it:
“Serena Williams volleys into tennis ‘wall challenge’
“Over the past month various athletes and celebs have been taking part in Roger Federer’s “wall challenge”, where they have to bounce a tennis ball rapidly against a wall (ideally while wearing a jaunty hat). The challenge is aimed at encouraging people to practise their tennis skills while staying at home.”
Nominated by Mr Polly



