BBC, Meet Plughole....

We are grateful to Andrew Pierce for his informative article about how the Foreign Office minister misled parliament with regard to the advertising of the post of Director of the World Service.

...

To maintain the BBC World Service's reputation and credibility, the new Managing Director must be chosen through a fully open selection process, with full consideration of the availability and qualification of external candidates. In addition, a new managing director must be authoritative in news and current affairs, have wide international perspectives, must be capable of resisting pressure both from the UK government and from other governments and should not believe that the World Service can be founded on the perceived importance of marketing. To impose a closing date for applications of January 4, 2009 is to foreclose all these options.

Read it, and weep.