Melting pot or goldfish bowl? BBC exposes engine room to the public gaze

The public will soon get the chance to see close up the work of news presenters such as Huw Edwards and Emily Maitlis, along with thousands of other BBC journalists.

The new Broadcasting House building will feature a Media Café for up to 450 people, who will be able to drink cappuccino while looking into the BBC's giant new, glass-fronted newsroom, the biggest in Europe.

Staff from the BBC World Service will begin moving into the new offices at the end of this month. The historic Bush House building will be refurbished by its Japanese owners when the BBC's lease runs out at the end of the year, and may re-open as a hotel.

The World Service, which celebrates its 80th anniversary in December, will work more closely with other parts of BBC News when it is incorporated into the new 12-storey multimedia Broadcasting House complex at Portland Place in London. The large newsroom will be a "fantastic melting pot", said Helen Boaden, the director of BBC News. "Simply being in the same building should encourage our ambition. The Today programme will have language service colleagues from the World Service in the same building. When there's a breaking foreign story, those World Service colleagues will be able to give the context for the Radio 4 audience."

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(Source : The Independent, UK)