Tomorrow's Business Today
Mean spirited questions for tomorrow
A point of order on the section just below this one – Questions business desks will discuss tomorrow.
A few queries lately show confusion as to what it is, and what it is not.
The idea is that we’re telling you what might come up at morning news meetings tomorrow.
The questions come from: some experienced guessing, hacks who are experts in the field under discussion, flaks with a bone to pick.
Plainly, I am not always going to get it right, but at least sometimes hacks think “that’s a good question to ask” and flaks think “we better get an answer to that”.
So it’s a heads up, or failing that, something to talk about.
If we ask: Is the CEO of company XYZ a scheming overpaid bully – don’t write in to say the premise of the question is totally unfair.
It might well be, we are just trying to signal that it is something on our collective hack minds, and that you might have a fight on here.
The answer to the question: Is ABC Ltd in crisis, can be “no”.
On one occasion recently, the premise was badly wrong enough that I offered to run a correction.
The company concerned took the view that if I hadn’t got the message on that issue, they probably had more work to do.
Exactly.
Press release of the day
Who wants to go back to the office full-time? According to this from Totaljobs and Boston Consulting, only 16% of men and just 9% of women.
More women than men want flexible working, a childcare issue presumably. (Don’t say that is sexist; it wasn’t me who decided the burden of childcare should fall on women.)
Back to the Office is going to be an interesting fight between staff and bosses…
