[interestednovice]

Yes, very. I don’t understand why they didn’t just allocate the Kasia, Annita etc a shift as chief presenters in the first place. They obviously need someone to present the shift. So much hassle and upset for the staff for no reason.

I agree. If we look at who they’ve appointed recently, then Ben will probably replace Maryam as a general “across the schedule” fill-in anchor, as Maryam moves to her new programme. But he won’t be able to appear as often as Maryam did in the role because he will also be doing some News at One shifts. So there is sort of at least half a job unfilled there. Meanwhile Annita will probably return to mornings, as she did before, filling the time somewhere between Sally Bundock’s shift and Lucy Hockings. But there are two shifts unfilled in mornings, so maybe Geeta will take the other one (perhaps the earlier mostly global-feed one, as she was historically more often a WN presenter).

So there is probably another presenter needed as fill-in cover for holidays and illness, and also cover for weekends which currently have no fixed presenters. It’s probably sensible to allocate two or three weekend presenters on a permanent basis and then use the “presenter-reporters” for the rest. This would easily give a job for everyone currently facing an uncertain future and the BBC could avoid the bad press and ill feeling in the newsroom. Given that so many people have already left the organisation, there really aren’t too many people for roles.