The Today programme disguises well-known names on its computerised running orders so that The World at One won't know what scoops the other side's chasing. By Sue MacGregor
''How awful," said one lot of kind friends in the run-up to Hutton, "not being in the Today office at a time like this. It must be an incredibly exciting place!" The other lot assumed that I'd be highly relieved to be well away from it all. My feelings have swithered somewhere between the two positions, coming to rest eventually in the second camp. But my astonishment at Lord Hutton's conclusions hasn't abated in any way.
Watching his lordship reading out a summary of his conclusions, already a slightly surreal experience, became even more so when a woman at the back of the court shouted something inaudible to those of us at home before he had finished his piece. Who on earth was it? An enraged member of the Today programme team? Andrew Gilligan's mother? A witness possessing positive proof of dossier doctoring? It turned out to be a woman convinced that poor Dr Kelly had not committed suicide but was murdered. Lord Hutton courteously informed her that there would be time to discuss that later, and continued with his task. Law lords may be unsuitable judges for this sort of inquiry, but by golly they can keep their cool.
Fortunately, the BBC has stopped reeling from the lopsided judgement, caught its breath, swallowed hard and decided the only way to go is forward - this last mantra being repeated almost ad nauseam by the new acting director general, Mark Byford. The Today office staff, I am reliably informed, having felt they were positioned somewhere between hell and the battle of the Somme, are now seeing things more clearly after a battering week for the Beeb, and are much bucked up by a warm wave of support from people who enjoy their programme and are happy with most of what the BBC provides. But there have been worrying rumours that there might now be a different approach to the way current affairs programmes such as Today and Newsnight are run. In future, individual programme management teams could be "reined in" and reporters and other staff could flow between several programmes. Where had I heard all this before? Under John Birt's director-generalship a decade or so ago - that's where. He promoted the idea of "executive editors" in charge of a raft of programmes that might have different names but which would have essentially the same editorial viewpoint. The idea was greeted with loud snorts of derision and disbelief by staff. I remember one meeting in Broadcasting House in which participants were shaking with fury at the battiness of the scheme. As anyone who's actually worked in the febrile atmosphere of a daily, live current-affairs programme knows, all of them thrive on a kind of deadly rivalry that sometimes baffles outsiders. The Today programme goes to great lengths to do better than its stablemates, including disguising well-known names on its computerised running orders, so that The World at One won't know what scoops the other side is chasing.
I can remember many occasions when I examined Today's list of interviewees, bleary-eyed at 4am, wondering why on earth Joe Soap was the lead story at ten past eight. Well, he wasn't: it was a newsmaker who everyone else had been chasing and we had persuaded to talk. Neighbouring programmes with deadlines later in the day would be sick as parrots, we thought. I was often the recipient of a stony stare as I left the Today studio and walked past Kevin Marsh when he edited The World at One. Presumably, he now gives the same sort of baleful looks to outsiders from his chair as editor of Today. In the open-plan world in which most parts of the BBC now operate, the editors' offices in which meetings are held are simply glassed-in boxes. At five past nine every morning, the Today team has its post-mortem next to The World at One's first big editorial meeting of the day. Each team is in animated conversation, visible to its rivals but unheard, as if in a silent movie. As far as I know, no hidden microphones have yet been placed.
The rivalry and a competitive spirit on which most news programmes thrive even extends, I can now reveal, or it did in my day, to the contents of rival programmes' fridges. If Today's milk supply had gone off, it was not unknown for a surreptitious swap to take place in the middle of the night. The World at One's best gold top was always received with a special sort of glee.
A postscript quite unconnected with the rumpty-thump world of politics. For the past few weeks, I have been marginally handicapped by a right wrist encased in plaster. It makes signing cheques more difficult (hooray!) as it does clutching on to support in my lurching local buses, many of which appear to be driven by Ben-Hur. But almost without exception, I've been offered a seat by the sort of person my granny might have described as a "scruffy youth". It's been the same on the Tube, where neatly suited yuppies stare hard into the distance and stay put.
My newly restored faith in the young and casually dressed was confirmed when an old lady collapsed on the pavement at a bus stop near Oxford Circus. Within moments, an ambulance had been called on someone's mobile phone, while three other youngsters made her comfortable by putting something soft under her head, holding her hand and making encouraging noises. I hope it made her day; it may even have saved her life. Who said no one cares any more?
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