LETTERS Dead right
Sir: When Myles Harris set out to write his entertaining piece ruing the changes in BBC World Service he rather gave the game away about what he had in mind. 'I've been asked to produce something for the old fogeys who read The Spectator,' he confided to our press office. Perhaps it wasn't surprising that he didn't take up our offer to meet Anthony Rendell, Editor World Service, to find out what we have actually been doing. As it turns out, the laugh is on Mr Harris because most of the changes in presentation which he forecasts Will undermine us have already been intro- duced in the past year — when he admits he wasn't listening. There has been no sacrifice of our traditional standards of accuracy and clarity.
Our concern is to make sure the network remains the world's leading international broadcaster into the 1990s and beyond — doubtless a time of profound change, whether Mr Harris likes it or not. To this end, we recently launched News/sour, a comprehensive 60-minute world survey, spearheading improved news and current affairs coverage. We've expanded our financial news and introduced new prog- rammes for young people, on politics, music and the media. We're delighted that Mr Harris holds World Service traditions in such esteem but it really is a shame that his reminisc- ences should contain so many errors. Just one example — we've never had a news- reader called Peter Lomax (perhaps short- wave reception was playing up that fondly if hazily remembered dawn in an Ethiopian hotel). His suggestion that we should ignore the vast majority of the World Service audience who are unfortunate enough not to be British expatriates tells us more about his cultural and moral centre — or lack of it — than ours.
On one thing we can agree. `Mr Tusa is no longer satisfied with the service's asto- nishingly successful prescription of old- fashioned upper-class news announcers, stiff delivery and a series of independent, sometimes uproariously quirky program- mes.' There Myles Harris is dead right.
John Tusa
Managing Director, BBC World Service, Bush House, London WC2
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