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There's a lot of things wrong with working for BBC News. Layers of bureaucracy, long hours, low pay (except for The Talent, of course...), office politics, many critics ready to jump on your back and bring you down, and low job security.

But every so often, you get a real big perk. Something that makes you proud to work in journalism, or for the BBC in particular. I remember thinking to myself "I'm proud to work for this organisation" a few times already this year: The broadcast of The Poles Are Coming!, the Sony awards where BBC programmes, particularly at the World Service, won for all the right public-service reasons, and just last weekend when everybody across BBC News fell silent for two minutes to mark the death and celebrate the life of two journalists, strangers to the large majority of staff, shot in Somalia and Afghanistan.

Tonight there was a different kind of perk - a live Coldplay concert at the front of the iconic, but regretfully doomed, Television Centre building in west London, home to BBC News, Five Live and the famous television studios.

I love Coldplay, and had I been on shift I would have foregone part of my lunch break in order to stand on the Star Terrace and watch the concert. However, I decided that a 3-hour round journey between home and Shepherd's Bush probably wasn't worth it for the 45-minute concert which was televised live anyway. Even the builders working on the new Hammersmith and City line Wood Lane station downed tools to watch... and got a mention from Chris Martin!

The concert is the first in a series, which over the last few years have seen the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, James Blunt and Madonna play free gigs for BBC staff, competition winners and gatecrashing members of the public (those looking through the main gates during tonight's concert, plus those builders!)

How many other organisations can boast that they could get big bands and artists to play free for their staff? Well, maybe Google - if you can drag the staff away from the games room for long enough...

Last night, a new monument was lit for the first time above the skies of London. Originating from the newly-built Egton wing of Broadcasting House, the home of newly-launched BBC Arabic Television and soon-to-be-home of the Global News division, encompassing World Service Radio and World News tv.

The monument, called Breathing, remembers the brave BBC journalists who have been killed in the line of duty, bringing news coverage to the attention of an international and UK audience. It was a poignant moment as, just last weekend, two BBC staff were murdered while doing their job. Abdul Samad Rohani, shot in Lashkar Gar in Afghanistan, and Nasteh Dahir Faraah, killed in Somalia, join the list, along with 21 others who have lost their lives while working for the BBC.

Launched by Ban-Ki-Moon, the light will shine almost a kilometer up into the London sky every night between 10:00 and 10:30pm, while the BBC's evening news bulletin is on-air. The base of the light also displays a poem penned by James Fenton.

We spoke, we chose to speak of war and strife
a task a fine ambition sought
and some might say, who shared our work, our life:
that praise was dearly bought.

Drivers, interpreters, these were our friends.
These we loved. These we were trusted by.
The shocked hand wipes the blood across the lens.
The lens looks to the sky.

Most died by mischance. Some seemed honour-bound
to take the lonely, peerless track
conceiving danger as a testing ground
to which they must go back

till the tongue fell silent and they crossed
beyond the realm of time and fear.
Death waved them through the checkpoint. They were lost.
All have their story here.


Meanwhile, a debate is ongoing at the World Service about 'outsourcing' jobs to the regions they cover. I don't think that outsourcing is the correct term to be using; however the plan is to move London-based jobs out to, for example, Islamabad for the Urdu service, Kathmandu for the Nepali service and Delhi for the Hindi service.

All very well on paper: Those journalists will be closer to the communities they broadcast to and will be closer to the story. That will therefore make newsgathering - the process of finding and researching stories and attending conferences and other events - a lot easier.

However - and I think you see where I'm going here given the first part of the blog post - it will also place those journalists in a much more vulnerable position.

Not just vulnerable to being attacked by rebels in the line of duty; but also vulnerable to their free speech and right to report being attacked by the governments whose country they're working in. The security - free-speech wise - of Bush House in London is completely different to the security of press freedom in the middle of Pyongyang, Bogota or even Karachi.

The World Service continues their excellent 70-year track record of broadcasting independent, state-free, unbiased news to the areas and countries of the world that really need - and respect - it. How long will those services remain interference-free if the majority of staff working there are based in those countries - and therefore subject to local laws on press freedom, freedom of speech and access to information?