BBC website confirms that blogging BBC journalists provide 'expert views'

Just trawling the BBC's blog offering over the last few weeks and came across this question to the editor of the BBC website in the light of the latest redesign:

"Why don't you have a single list of the main News blogs linked from the front page?"

In the answer, Steve Herrmann notes that there is now an 'Expert Views' section on some of the BBC's webpages where you will find links to the BBC's bloggers:

"We do not currently have a single destination page aggregating all our News blogs, but we link to blogs individually on relevant section indexes around the site, also on related stories and on the front page, depending on the news agenda.

"All the blogs are also linked to from the right hand navigation within any individual blog post. There is now a new section on many of the main indexes called "Expert Views" which does provide a home for blogs in the respective subject areas. For these reasons we do not currently have a permanent link to all of them on the front page."

The terminology further reinforces the idea that while BBC journalists may not express personal views they are allowed to offer expert views - i.e. those that are "rooted in evidence".

In the editorial guidelines these are described as "professional judgements" rather than "personal views".

Though, as I've pondered before, the difference might sometimes be a fine one.