Mishal Husain makes a splash while poor old Jim Naughtie floats away

 
17 July 2013

Hats off to Tony Hall. Further to my note yesterday about the new BBC director-general using Mishal Husain to distract attention from the Corporation’s disastrous annual report, the tactic worked beautifully, with new R4 Today presenter Ms Husain gracing the front page of The Independent, Guardian and Telegraph today.

No such luck for another Today presenter, Jim Naughtie, who, as one BBC source put it, has been elegantly elbowed. Ms Husain’s arrival is only possible because Naughtie is being sent to Scotland to present Good Morning Scotland two days a week from next year, ostensibly to cover the Scottish referendum.

On the plus side, Naughtie moved from Richmond to Edinburgh recently so he’ll have less commuting to do. He says he’s “thrilled” about his new job but not so overjoyed that he hasn’t been emphasising that he will return to Today full-time in 2015. If Ms Husain goes down a storm, that ambition may be harder to achieve than Naughtie realises.

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