The UK papers have some thoughts today about Mark Thompson, (seated, left) the director-general of the BBC, who made the news this week after announcing some big cuts at one of the world's most famous broadcasters. Among other things, he also promised to shift some jobs out of the capital of Britain's media and cultural life, London, and send them north to Manchester, whose most recent contribution to global culture must surely be Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, and Inspiral Carpets.
Thompson, incidentally, was apparently reluctant to take the top job at the Beeb for, as he puts it one article, it's always the last job anyone ever has.
Here's the Guardian:
“The Quiet Revolutionary”
Now, less than a year into his time at the BBC, staff are getting a sense of what it means to have Thompson at the helm. For many of them, it is a confusing time. The mood in Manchester and the rest of the north, earmarked for expansion as the balance of power swings away from London, is understandably positive. But those in the suddenly unfashionable metropolitan south are contemplating either redundancy or relocation to a distant land of which they know little. As the boss himself admitted, there is a tough and unsettling period ahead …
and here's The Scotsman on Sunday:
“Thompson gets BBC out of its Jacuzzi culture”
MARK Thompson, director general of the BBC, must wish he had never remarked that the BBC was “basking in a Jacuzzi of spare public cash” during his tenure as chief executive of Channel 4.
From the day he left C4 and took over at the helm of the BBC in May, Thompson has been expected to follow his critical words with decisive action and pull the plug on the corporation’s luxurious bathing arrangements.