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BBC and the royal scoop that wasn't

The BBC has described this week's royal row as regrettable "human error". The interesting question is which human made the error.

It looks like the mistake may have been compounded by the fact that the offending clips of the Queen definitely not stomping away from a photo shoot where compiled by the company that's making the documentary, and not the BBC itself.

Much has been made in the press of the BBC needing to put its house in order. This may be the BBC's responsibility, but it becomes much more difficult when production is outsourced.

I meet many freelances working in independent production who have to flit from job to job and know that they are only as good as their last position. There is no security and very little concept of training and development.

It doesn't make you a bad person, but the pressures to stay ahead of the pack are enormous. Central tennets of public service broadcasting are often not uppermost in the mind.

Contrast that with the rigour with which the BBC trains its journalists and the tonnage of bricks that would come down on any staffer who mislead the viewers in such a high profile way.

But the juggernaut of outsourcing rumbles on. In such a competitive media world I suspect this week's human error won't be the last.

Alan Johnston Freed!

It's rare to wake up to the Radio 4 news and be overjoyed at the first words you hear. The end of Alan Johnston's ordeal is good news in anybody's book.

Cynics will argue that any Brit who works in Gaza is asking to be kidnapped. But that misses the point. The respect shown towards Alan Johnston by Palestinians as well as others around the world demonstrates that professionalism and calm impartiality are a tremendously powerful force.

It will be interesting to see whether the international attitude to Hamas changes as a result of its role in Alan Johnston's release. Nothing will happen quickly, but this could be a catalyst.

Fascinating too to hear his abductors described in reports as one of Gaza's 'criminal clan'. That echoes (co-incidentally I suspect) the change in terminology from the Brown government following last week's incidents in London and Glasgow.

Suddenly it feels like we're trying to tackle common criminals rather than wage a war on some kind of -ism. Personally I feel more comfortable with the new approach.