The BBC has opened up applications for the job of head of the World Service to outside the coporation after initially giving the impression that it would only be open to internal candidates.
Applications for the £300,000-a-year- job were advertised in Ariel on 4 January – giving applicants only 11 working days to respond.
The matter prompted public criticism from two former World Service directors who wrote a letter to The Telegraph.
The Independent’s Pandora diary suggests today that the application procedure was streamlined because director of global news Richard Sambrook is a shoe-in for the post. Sambrook points out in a comment to this site below, that this report is rubbish.
Conservative MP Greg Hands told the Telegraph: “I am glad the BBC has seen sense. It important that such an important public post is chosen through a fully open selection process. The way the BBC was doing it implied that there was going to be a stitch up for one of their cronies to take the job.
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