Of jargon and John Humphrys

From Patrick Kidd's Times Diary:

Nicky Morgan, who will stay on as the culture secretary, has BBC reform at the top of her agenda. Getting rid of jargon would be a start. A commissioning editor says that he was in a meeting with one of the Beeb’s directors who used the phrase “replenisher-facing content must be platform-agnostic”. Pressed on what that actually meant, he said: “Young people prefer Netflix.” The same exec added that “the lake of content is not vertical”, meaning that people can skim or dive into the BBC, “but they also want to explore horizontal opportunities”. To which the commissioning editor replied: “I think my definition of horizontal opportunities is different to yours.”

And:

John Humphrys was looking forward to this month’s election as it would be the first since 1966 in which he had played no part. After all those years of having to pretend to be impartial, the former BBC broadcaster could finally declare a preference and no one would demand that he be sacked. “Impartiality is rubbish,” he writes in the Waitrose house magazine. “Always has been. Most people vote for the party they think will improve their lives and we hacks do the same.” Liberated at last, Humphrys then surveyed the political landscape and his heart sank. “For the first time in my life,” he says, “I wanted an option on the ballot that says ‘none of the above’.”