How do we escalate this job?
In the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's Television Centre, there is an escalator that doesn't move. Not up, not down. It just sits there, thinking, as an escalator might, about why it was brought into being to escalate and so why, for several years at least, it hasn't budged.
In the Newsnight office, we've recently had a plasma screen installed on the wall. You might think this terribly flashy, but it's been many months coming. Its purpose is - or will be - to put Newsnight's web pages at the heart of the production team. But for the week that it's been hanging, it's been dark. Curious producers flash it the occasional glance, wondering why it's appeared, little knowing that it is hooked up to an aerial. It was affixed to the wall a week late, after the first attempt was aborted owing to the wrong kind of wall bracket. It was then connected to a computer. But the computer is not connected to a network, so we can't log in. So the plasma screen is turned off. Like the escalator.
Now, a plasma screen that can't display the Newsnight website isn't being denied its "raison en d'etre" in quite the same way that an escalator is when it isn't permitted to escalate. We could of course watch the Euro tournament on it, for instance, or even - and here's a thought - Newsnight. But it would be a shame, in an office full of television monitors, to use Newsnight's plasma screen like a regular TV, just as the escalator is used like a regular flight of stairs.
We on the web team hope that our plasma screen is not on the same person's "to do" list as that poor, immobile escalator in Television Centre.
Comment number 1.
At 20th Jun 2008, barriesingleton wrote:ONE SOLUTION
I believe if all the money spent on turning information into art, was put into making things work, you would all think you had died and gone to some heaven, where news and current affairs broadcasting is a serious business.
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Comment number 2.
At 20th Jun 2008, B1TNY wrote:Surly there is enough technical expertise in the web team to sort this problem out and bring your new screen into life? But then again I imagine that all manner of rules and regulations will prevent you from doing so!
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Comment number 3.
At 20th Jun 2008, StuartDenman wrote:B1TONY (2) -
Got it in one. You should have seen how long we waited before we were allowed to use the office microwave!
Stuart
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Comment number 4.
At 20th Jun 2008, grumpy-jon wrote:Thanx for this insight Stuart. Hardly surprising really given our rush towards 3rd world status. Rigged elections, denied referenda, dysentry, potholed roads, the return of TB,
bank failures, hospitals full of infections, gun-gang feuds and car-jackings, a corrupt political system at breakdown....and now a grand and expensive state project that doesn't work and can't be fixed.
Why should we be surprised?
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Comment number 5.
At 20th Jun 2008, DerekPhibes wrote:StuartDenman - post #3
While waiting for Godot, perhaps consider accessing the Newsnight website as some of us do, rather than across a Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ lan/wan?
Since your pc is not cabled into a Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ network surely this is a good resource for evaluating a mobile broadband usb dongle (fairly reasonably priced on various mobile phone networks) which may be of use to some of your roving people? It's then just fortuitous that your pc is connected to the plasma screen.
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Comment number 6.
At 20th Jun 2008, commandlinewarrior wrote:The time honored answer is to take the redundant Plasma home and watch the football with it.
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Comment number 7.
At 22nd Jun 2008, MarcusAureliusII wrote:Where do you people in the news business live, in a cave? Don't you know that the capital and operating budgets are two different piles of money and one has nothing to do with the other? The people in charge of capital have done their job but operations doesn't have these as a priority. If I were you, I'd put in a building service request and pretend that they operated all the time and they're just broken. Maintenance comes from yet a separate pile of money and there just might be something left over to take care of you. Othewise, stop grumbling and make do with the stairs and your laptop. Look on the bright side, it's saving the planet from global warming by not wasting energy. Sheesh, where do you think you are, Camelot?
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