THE editor of political programmes at BBC Scotland has been allocated additional responsibility following a change in personnel in the organisation’s news and current affairs department.
The handing over to John Boothman the newsgathering editorship follows the imminent move of current incumbent, Huw Owen, to the BBC Scotland factual department, for at least six months.
With no replacement for Owen, it has meant widespread re-assignments from head of news and current affairs at BBC Scotland: Atholl Duncan.
He has told his team he also wants to “involve the output editors much more in the management decision making”.
Among other changes, Phil Wells will be taking on responsibility for radio news bulletins, in addition to his main role of editing Good Morning Scotland, on BBC Radio Scotland.
In a similar vein, Diarmid O’Hara, as well as editing Reporting Scotland, will take on responsibility for all the TV news bulletins – including launching new weekend bulletins.
Newsnight Scotland editor, Daniel Maxwell, is to become also responsible for Politics Scotland, the Politics Show and radio programme, Scotland at Ten.
In a memo to staff, Duncan adds: “These arrangements are on a trial basis and can be tweaked as we go along. Nothing is set in stone. I will make myself available over the next while to discuss these changes with the various teams.”
The new roles will take effect from a week on Monday.
In summary, the roles are as follows:
Editor, Good Morning Scotland, and radio bulletins
Phil Wells
Editor, daytime radio
Pat Stevenson
Editor, online
Graeme Esson
Managing editor, plus travel and weather
Karen Johnston
Editor, investigations
Marcus Ryder
Editor, Newsnight Scotland and politics programmes
Daniel Maxwell
Editor, Reporting Scotland and TV news bulletins
Diarmid O’Hara
Newsgathering editor, John Boothman
