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Peter Barron

Stress in the workplace


Earlier this week the BBC in-house mag e-mailed me to see if we could help with an item they’re doing about stress in the workplace.

Newsnight logoI couldn’t think of much to say. Obviously Newsnight has its moments, but generally it’s not a particularly stressy environment – not like air traffic control or A&E or 24-hour news. And then Wednesday happened.

We had a much sought-after interview with the Monarch Two, the two Asian lads from Manchester thrown off a holiday flight for freaking out the passengers. The Daily Mirror got the scoop and for some reason offered the only TV interviews to ITV News and Newsnight.

So there was quite a lot riding on it. When at 8.30pm – two hours before we go on air – our producer called from Manchester to say that not a single frame of the interview they’d recorded was usable because of a tape fault, our motormouth programme editor Jasmin simply responded “I don’t know what to say”, and my long dormant IBS started to play up.

Incredibly, we managed to persuade the boys to re-do the interview and with superhuman assistance from the BBC’s Northern bureau got a satellite truck to their hotel to do an as-live interview just in time for the programme at 10.30. I bet no viewer spotted our close shave with televisual death, but yes that was stressful.

I’m writing this in Edinburgh, where I’m undergoing a different type of stress. Months ago I agreed – who knows why – to take part in a special TV Festival edition of Stars in their Eyes. Obviously the protocols of the show forbid me from saying who I’m going to be, but the process is not without anxiety.

On holiday earlier in the summer - a particularly stress-free time – I was reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, and his theory goes that when people are put in situations of intense stress they become momentarily autistic. That, he reckons, explains why policemen occasionally shoot innocent people.

Not sure about autistic, but clumsy certainly. It’s apparently to do with the blood rushing to your core and thus leaving your fingers. So when, in rehearsal, the host Vernon Kay declared – hypothetically – that I had won the event, my victory salute caught him sharply in the groin.

These are the stresses we have to endure.

Peter Barron is editor of Newsnight

Richard Jackson

More swearing


Another bit of swearing hit the airwaves on Thursday morning. It came as we on Five Live Breakfast were talking to an Israeli soldier about a protest against his country's leadership over the handling of recent conflict.

Radio Five Live logo"I'm sorry for the word, but they f***ed up and they have to pay the price," said the soldier.

Nicky Campbell apologised - and immediately people contacted us to say that was unnecessary.

"The use of the F word was in my view completely in context," said one listener, Keith.

The broadcasting industry watchdog Ofcom however says caution must be taken over swearing, particularly at Breakfast time. Indeed Radio 1 has threatened to fine presenters if they are caught swearing on air.

So is a soldier swearing something we should say sorry for?

Here's another e-mail:

"re the interview earlier with Israeli officer. Great radio, not at all offended, it's real people in a real situation that man had just walked off a battlefield and was speaking from the heart !!! It's what Five Live is all about !!!
Keep it up - Andy Owens, Liverpool"

Richard Jackson is editor of Five Live Breakfast

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BBC in the news, Friday

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  • 25 Aug 06, 10:31 AM

Independent: Asian students deny on Newsnight that an airline mutiny was a student prank. (link)

Daily Mail: Leader on multiculturalism, including Ruth Kelly's statement about integration and George Alagiah's book. (no link available)

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