Media Diary: Making a meal of new media

Social networks

In the British Airways magazine High Life, the prolific wordsmith Jonathan Margolis, a childhood radio ham, opines on the future of social media. "Am I the only one who sees Facebook and Twitter as the new ham radio?" he asks, before contradicting the thinking of Mark Zuckerberg by adding: "I think email dying is as likely as typewriters making a comeback."

Boaden feels budget squeeze

BBC

With BBC News budgets under pressure from global events, its director, Helen Boaden, will give a keynote speech tomorrow at the VLV conference in London.

Hot hacks don't amuse BBC boss

Broadcasting

The BBC's chief operating officer Caroline Thomson last week chose to deliver news of plans for reducing the corporation's property portfolio by means of a conference call to journalists around Britain.

As the hacks waited impatiently for their briefing to begin, some national correspondents began joshing that they had been trying to contact a sex chat phone line and described their perspiration and state of undress. The prim Thomson (above), who was already present and quietly listening in, was deeply unimpressed.