The appointment of Fran Unsworth as director of news has gone down well at the BBC. She’s a corporation lifer, noted for calm, practical management with a decent human touch – which, as this week’s re-eruption of the equal pay row indicates, she will need. “A huge relief” is how one presenter characterised the reaction to her arrival, and on social media some BBC folk went further. “They have learned from the mistake of appointing a print journalist to run a broadcaster,” said one.
The outgoing director, James Harding, was a former editor of the Times. Nobody doubted his journalistic nous nor his energy. He also managed to get through his tenure without any hurricane-force storms, which is an achievement denied to most BBC News managers, including me. But many of Harding’s troops were never convinced that he understood public service broadcasting: rather than insulate himself by promoting BBC types, he doubled down by bringing in outsiders to key roles.
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