BBC axes Paris-based correspondent

"In changes to its newsgathering operation, the Paris staff correspondent role is to be replaced by a stringer, or "sponsored reporter", while the Moscow and Brussels bureaux will also lose journalists," says the Guardian.

Given the newspaper cutbacks that have taken place over the past 12 months, there are concerns regarding the impact that staff reductions - in both print and broadcasting newsrooms - around the world might have on the quality of journalism. In light of the recession, as news teams are forced to tighten their belts and shed staff, whilst simultaneously managing increasingly larger workloads, what are the implications on employees, bearing in mind the additional pressure they will find themselves under?

And what do BBC news consumers make of it all? One US-based commentator, by the name of Waltroon, put it eloquently thus:

"Thus, [in the USA] Pakistan is big at the moment, whereas interest in Iraq is fading. China gets a lot of attention, but only because Americans fear that Beijing plans to replace Washington as the world's de facto capital. Europe gets a look in only when something funny or grotesque happens - Berlusconi's marital difficulties, for example, or the amusing greed of British MPs. The EU is seen as boring and ineffectual; the French are vain; the Germans stolid; the Italians impossible and the Spanish a little bit backward. Japan is viewed as "important," but "safe;" Sri Lanka is never mentioned and there is just about zero interest in India beyond its impact as a call centre and steelmaker. The recent elections in South Africa passed by virtually unnoticed. Zimbabwe is just a footnote. Only Somalia makes it into the news, and that because its pirates recently seized an American ship.

"There are many reasons for this blinkered approach, some of them sociological and historical, others fiscal and technological. But the effect of successive cutbacks in recent years is an ever-increasing isolationism. The United States today is provincial on a grand scale. As far as milions of its citizens are concerned, the world beyond its borders is either a resource or a threat - or just possibly a holiday destination.

"Britain needs to avoid this same mentality. And the BBC is central to preserving our World View. We should not forget that the swinging cuts now underway were intitiated during the recent years of plenty. While budgetary pressures are obviously on the increase, the principle reason has nothing to do with the present economic crisis."

Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news said that saving costs "without doing editorial damage" was possible. It is too early to tell whether or not Boaden is right, but we figure that, at the very least, damage to staff morale is one thing the BBC will not be able to avoid.


Sources: Guardian.co.uk