BBC Gets into Catfight with Telegraph over Whose Employees Are More Miserable
We love media fights. We make our living covering media fights. And the best media fights are the ones where the cattiness is subtle, shady, and involves two giant British media organizations.
Which means that the shade-throwing between the BBC and the Telegraph is a good one.
It all began when, for some reason, the Telegraph decided to run an article yesterday slamming the BBC’s work environment, hitching off an industry publication’s aggregation of nearly 130 GlassDoor.com reviews. “The BBC has been described as ‘bureaucratic,’ ‘Orwellian’ and a ‘holiday camp’ by its employees in a series of anonymous reviews of the corporation,” the article began, and it got even scold-ier:
The BBC scores 3.5 stars out of five from employees, with 78 per cent recommending it to others as an employer…
One anonymous employee, who worked at the BBC for ten years and praised its journalism, described it as “the worst employer I have ever worked for”.
They added: “It relies on its name and former reputation to keep salaries down. Bullying by managers is rife. Working hours often intolerable. There is no development of staff.
“It operates on the basis of ‘the old school tie’ with those from Oxbridge or the well-connected occupying senior roles.”
As any good journalist organization would, they got a quote from a BBC spokesman, who said “We’re pleased that so many people enjoy working at the BBC.” But according to the BBC, the Telegraph didn’t print their quote in full:
“We’re pleased that so many people enjoy working at the BBC and note that we scored 3.5 out of 5, compared to the Telegraph Media Group’s 2.7 out of 5.”
Wait, really!? OH BOY. Let’s go look at some GlassDoor.com reviews of the Telegraph Media Group!
“Old boys club.”
“Awful senior management. Decisions made by people who have no idea how departments actually function.”
” Sometimes I felt the drive to increase website traffic clouded editorial decisions. Also, during a period of cutbacks I thought management treated the casual workers unfairly (but I may be biased).”
There are only six reviews, which is a fraction of the 130 reviews that the BBC had, but really, they’re not much nicer than the BBC’s reviews. So is the lesson here that, in general, news organizations are suffering countless managerial crises brought on by a shifting media landscape and diminishing funds, and that GlassDoor.com is a repository of poisonous anger? Or did we just learn that the BBC is a better Mean Girl and the Telegraph needs to retake Bitch-Talking 101?
It’s open to interpretation.
[h/t Ben Thompson]
[Image via Shutterstock]
