THE BBC Scotland will have had better days – media-wise – with its head of news and current affairs, John Boothman, and its football presenter, Tam Cowan, both in the media firing line today.
First up, former presenter of BBC Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland, Derek Bateman, is reported in The Herald, querying in a blog whether Boothman is ‘too close’ to Labour.
Second, Kenneth Roy, in his Scottish Review website, alleges that a column by Cowan in Saturday’s edition of Daily Record – criticising women’s football – is not an isolated incident.
And in passing, Bateman writes about his relatively recent departure from BBC Scotland: “… three months later, I never have received a note of farewell from the Director of BBC Scotland, his deputy or the Head of Radio. They must be glad to see the back of me. In fact, I don’t think they’ve noticed that I’ve gone – someone said my face still appears on the website as being on the staff. But I think it says something, that the senior bosses are so cocooned in a corporate bubble that one of their main presenters of 25 years standing can leave without the boss’s acknowledgement. Just another body out the door…”
