BBC News is an operational business division
of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible
for the gathering and broadcasting of news
and current affairs. The department is the
world's largest broadcast news organisation
and generates about 120 hours of radio and
television output each day, as well as online
news coverage. The service maintains 45 foreign
news bureaux and has correspondents in almost
every country. James Harding, a former editor
of The Times newspaper, was named on 16 April
2013 as Director of News and Current Affairs.
The department's annual budget is £350 million;
it has 3,500 staff, 2,000 of whom are journalists.
Through the BBC English Regions, BBC News
has regional centres across England as well
as national news centres in Northern Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales. All regions and nations
produce their own local news programmes and
other current affairs and sport programmes.
Radio and television operations are currently
broadcast from the newly refurbished Broadcasting
House, with all domestic, global, and online
news divisions housed in Europe's largest
live newsroom inside the building. Parliamentary
coverage is produced and broadcast from studios
in Millbank in London.
The BBC is a quasi-autonomous corporation
authorised by Royal Charter, making it formally
independent of government, and required to
report impartially. It has been accused of
political bias from across the political spectrum.
Internationally, the BBC has been banned from
reporting from within some countries which
accuse the corporation of working to destabilise
their governments.
In 2004, the BBC celebrated 50 years of television
news broadcasts. BBC News journalists, cameramen,
and programmes have won awards over the years
for reporting, particularly from the Royal
Television Society. The BBC founded the BBC
College of Journalism in 2005 as a part of
the BBC Academy, following recommendations
made after the Hutton Report.
History
The early years
The British Broadcasting Company broadcast
its first radio bulletin from radio station
2LO on 14 November 1922. Wishing to avoid
competition, newspaper publishers persuaded
the government to ban the BBC from broadcasting
news before 7 PM, and to force it to use wire
service copy instead of reporting on its own.
On Easter weekend in 1930, this reliance on
newspaper wire services left the radio news
service with no information to report. Piano
music was played instead. The BBC gradually
gained the right to edit the copy and in 1934
created its own news operation, but could
not broadcast news before 6 PM until World
War II. Gaumont British and Movietone cinema
newsreels had been broadcast on the TV service
since 1936, with the BBC producing its own
equivalent Television Newsreel programme from
January 1948. A weekly Children's Newsreel
was inaugurated on 23 April 1950, to around
350,000 receivers. The network began simulcasting
its radio news on television in 1946 with
a still picture of Big Ben. Televised bulletins
began on 5 July 1954, broadcast from leased
studios within Alexandra Palace in London.
The public's interest in television and live
events was stimulated by Elizabeth II's coronation
in 1953. It is estimated that up to 27 million
people viewed the programme in the UK, overtaking
radio's audience of 12 million for the first
time. Those live pictures were fed from 21
cameras in central London to Alexandra Palace
for transmission, and then on to other UK
transmitters opened in time for the event.
That year, there were around two million TV
Licences held in the UK, rising to over three
million the following year and four and a
half million by 1955.
1950s
Television news, although physically separate
from its radio counterpart, was still firmly
under its control– correspondents provided
reports for both outlets–and that first
bulletin, shown on 5 July 1954 on the then
BBC television service and presented by Richard
Baker, involved his providing narration off-screen
while stills were shown. This was then followed
by the customary Television Newsreel with
a recorded commentary by John Snagge.
It was revealed that this had been due to
producers fearing a newsreader with visible
facial movements would distract the viewer
from the story. On-screen newsreaders were
finally introduced a year later in 1955 – Kenneth
Kendall, Robert Dougall, and Richard Baker–three
weeks before ITN's launch on 21 September
1955.
Mainstream television production had started
to move out of Alexandra Palace in 1950 to
larger premises – mainly at Lime Grove Studios
in Shepherd's Bush, west London – taking
Current Affairs with it, and it was from here
that the first Panorama, a new documentary
programme, was transmitted on 11 November
1953, with Richard Dimbleby becoming anchor
in 1955. On 18 February 1957, the topical
early-evening programme Tonight hosted by
Cliff Michelmore and designed to fill the
airtime provided by the abolition of the Toddlers'
Truce, was broadcast from Marconi's Viking
Studio in St Mary Abbott's Place, Kensington
– with the programme moving into a Lime
Grove studio in 1960, where it already maintained
its production office.
On 28 October 1957, the Today programme a
morning radio programme was launched in central
London on the Home Service.
In 1958, Hugh Carleton Greene became head
of News and Current Affairs. He set up a BBC
study group whose findings, published in 1959,
were critical of what the television news
operation had become under his predecessor,
Tahu Hole. The report proposed that the head
of television news should take control, and
that the television service should have a
proper newsroom of its own, with an editor-of-the-day.
1960s
On 1 January 1960, Greene became Director-General
and brought about big changes at BBC Television
and BBC Television News. BBC Television News
had been created in 1955 in response to the
founding of ITN. The changes made by Greene
were aimed at making BBC reporting more similar
to ITN which had been highly rated by study
groups held by Greene.
A newsroom was created at Alexandra Palace,
television reporters were recruited and given
the opportunity to write and voice their own
scripts–without the "impossible burden"
of having to cover stories for radio too.
In 1987, almost thirty years later, John Birt,
resurrected the practice of correspondents
working for both TV and radio with the introduction
of bi-media journalism, and 2008 saw tri-media
introduced across TV, radio, and online.
On 20 June 1960, Nan Winton, the first female
BBC network newsreader, appeared in vision.
19 September saw the start of the radio news
and current affairs programme The Ten O'clock
News.
BBC2 started transmission on 20 April 1964,
and with it came a new news programme for
that channel, Newsroom.
The World at One, a lunchtime news programme,
began on 4 October 1965 on the then Home Service,
and the year before News Review had started
on television. News Review was a summary of
the week's news, first broadcast on Sunday,
26 April 1964 on BBC 2 and harking back to
the weekly Newsreel Review of the Week, produced
from 1951, to open programming on Sunday evenings–the
difference being that this incarnation had
subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing.
As this was the decade before electronic caption
generation, each superimposition had to be
produced on paper or card, synchronised manually
to studio and news footage, committed to tape
during the afternoon, and broadcast early
evening. Thus Sundays were no longer a quiet
day for news at Alexandra Palace. The programme
ran until the 1980s – by then using electronic
captions, known as Anchor – to be superseded
by Ceefax subtitling, and the signing of such
programmes as See Hear.
On Sunday 17 September 1967 The World This
Weekend, a weekly news and current affairs
programme, launched on what was then Home
Service, but soon-to-be Radio 4.
Preparations for colour began in the autumn
of 1967 and on Thursday 7 March 1968 Newsroom
on BBC2 moved to an early evening slot, becoming
the first UK news programme to be transmitted
in colour – from Studio A at Alexandra Palace.
News Review and Westminster were "colourised"
shortly after.
However, much of the insert material was still
in black and white, as initially only a part
of the film coverage shot in and around London
was on colour reversal film stock, and all
regional and many international contributions
were still in black and white. Colour facilities
at Alexandra Palace were technically very
limited for the next eighteen months, as it
had only one RCA colour Quadruplex videotape
machine and, eventually two Pye plumbicon
colour telecines–although the news colour
service started with just one.
Black and white national bulletins on BBC
1 continued to originate from Studio B on
weekdays, along with Town and Around, the
London regional "opt out" programme broadcast
throughout the 1960s, until it started to
be replaced by Nationwide on Tuesday to Thursday
from Lime Grove Studios early in September
1969. Town and Around was never to make the
move to Television Centre – instead it became
London This Week which transmitted on Mondays
and Fridays only from the new TVC studios.
Television News moves to Television Centre
The final news programme to come from Alexandra
Palace was a late night news on BBC 2 on Friday
19 September 1969 in colour. It was said that
over this September weekend, it took 65 removal
vans to transfer the contents of Alexandra
Palace across London. BBC Television News
resumed operations the next day with a lunchtime
bulletin on BBC 1 – in black and white – from
Television Centre, where it remained until
March 2013.
This move to better technical facilities,
but much smaller studios, allowed Newsroom
and News Review to replace back projection
with Colour-separation overlay. It also allowed
all news output to be produced in PAL colour,
ahead of the development in all of BBC 1 from
15 November 1969 – and, like Alexandra Palace
Studio A, these studios too were capable of
operating in NTSC for the US, Canada, and
Japan as the BBC occasionally provided facilities
for overseas broadcasters. During the 1960s
satellite communication had become possible,
however colour field-store standards converters
were still in their infancy in 1968 and it
was some years before digital line-store conversion
was able to undertake the process seamlessly.
1970s
On 14 September 1970 the first Nine O'Clock
News was broadcast on television. Robert Dougall
presented the first week from studio N1 – described
by The Guardian as "a sort of polystyrene
padded cell"—the bulletin having been moved
from the earlier time of 20.50 as a response
to the ratings achieved by ITN's News at Ten,
introduced three years earlier on the rival
ITV. Richard Baker and Kenneth Kendall presented
subsequent weeks, thus echoing those first
television bulletins of the mid-1950s.
Angela Rippon became the first female news
presenter of the Nine O'Clock News in 1975.
Her work outside the news was controversial
at the time, appearing on The Morecambe and
Wise Christmas Show in 1976 singing and dancing.
The first edition of John Craven's Newsround,
initially intended only as a short series
and later renamed just Newsround, came from
studio N3 on 4 April 1972.
Afternoon television news bulletins during
the mid to late 1970s were broadcast from
the BBC newsroom itself, rather than one of
the three news studios. The newsreader would
present to camera while sitting on the edge
of a desk; behind him staff would be seen
working busily at their desks. This period
corresponded with when the Nine O'Clock News
got its next makeover, and would use a CSO
background of the newsroom from that very
same camera each weekday evening.
Also in the mid-1970s, the late night news
on BBC 2 was briefly renamed Newsnight, but
this was not to last, or be the same programme
as we know today – that would be launched
in 1980 – and it soon reverted to being
just a news summary with the early evening
BBC 2 news expanded to become Newsday.
News on radio was to change in the 1970s,
and on Radio 4 in particular, brought about
by the arrival of new editor Peter Woon from
television news and the implementation of
the Broadcasting in the Seventies report.
These included the introduction of correspondents
into news bulletins where previously only
a newsreader would present, as well as the
inclusion of content gathered in the preparation
process. New programmes were also added to
the daily schedule, PM and The World Tonight
as part of the plan for the station to become
a "wholly speech network". Newsbeat launched
as the news service on Radio 1 on 10 September
1973.
On 23 September 1974, a teletext system which
was launched to bring news content on television
screens using text only was launched. Engineers
originally began developing such a system
to bring news to deaf viewers, but the system
was expanded. The Ceefax service became much
more diverse before it ceased on 23 October
2012: it not only had subtitling for all channels,
it also gave information such as weather,
flight times and film reviews.
By the end of the decade, the practice of
shooting on film for inserts in news broadcasts
was declining, with the introduction of ENG
technology into the UK. The equipment would
gradually became less cumbersome – the BBC's
first attempts had been using a Philips colour
camera with backpack base station and separate
portable Sony U-matic recorder in the latter
half of the decade.
1980s
By 1982 ENG technology had become sufficiently
reliable for Bernard Hesketh to use an Ikegami
camera to cover the Falklands War, coverage
for which he won the "Royal Television Society
Cameraman of the Year" award and a BAFTA nomination
– the first time that BBC News had relied
upon an electronic camera, rather than film,
in a conflict zone. BBC News won the BAFTA
for its actuality coverage, however the event
has become remembered in television terms
for Brian Hanrahan's reporting where he coined
the phrase "I'm not allowed to say how many
planes joined the raid, but I counted them
all out and I counted them all back" to circumvent
restrictions, and which has become cited as
an example of good reporting under pressure.
Two years before that the Iranian Embassy
Siege had been shot electronically by the
BBC Television News Outside broadcasting team,
and the work of reporter Kate Adie, broadcasting
live from Prince's Gate, was nominated for
BAFTA actuality coverage, but this time beaten
by ITN for the 1980 award.
Newsnight, the news and current affairs programme,
was due to go on air on 23 January 1980, although
trade union disagreements meant that its launch
from Lime Grove was postponed by a week. On
27 August 1981 Moira Stuart became the first
African Caribbean female newsreader to appear
on British television.
The first BBC breakfast television programme,
Breakfast Time also launched during the 1980s,
on 17 January 1983 from Lime Grove Studio
E and two weeks before its ITV rival TV-am.
Frank Bough, Selina Scott, and Nick Ross helped
to wake viewers with a relaxed style of presenting.
The Six O'Clock News first aired on 3 September
1984, eventually becoming the most watched
news programme in the UK.
Starting in 1981, the BBC gave a common theme
to its main news bulletins with new electronic
titles–a set of computer animated "stripes"
forming a circle on a red background with
a "BBC News" typescript appearing below the
circle graphics, and a theme tune consisting
of brass and keyboards. The Nine used a similar
number 9. The red background was replaced
by a blue from 1985 until 1987.
By 1987, the BBC had decided to re-brand its
bulletins and established individual styles
again for each one with differing titles and
music, the weekend and holiday bulletins branded
in a similar style to the Nine, although the
"stripes" introduction continued to be used
until 1989 on occasions where a news bulletin
was screened out of the running order of the
schedule.
1990s
During the 1990s, a wider range of services
began to be offered by BBC News, with the
split of BBC World Service Television to become
BBC World, and BBC Prime. Content for a 24-hour
news channel was thus required, followed in
1997 with the launch of domestic equivalent
BBC News 24. Rather than set bulletins, ongoing
reports and coverage was needed to keep both
channels functioning and meant a greater emphasis
in budgeting for both was necessary. In 1998,
after 66 years at Broadcasting House, the
BBC Radio News operation moved to BBC Television
Centre.
New technology, provided by Silicon Graphics,
came into use in 1993 for a re-launch of the
main BBC 1 bulletins, creating a virtual set
which appeared to be much larger than it was
physically. The relaunch also brought all
bulletins into the same style of set with
only small changes in colouring, titles, and
music to differentiate each. A computer generated
glass sculpture of the BBC coat of arms was
the centrepiece of the programme titles until
the large scale corporate rebranding of news
services in 1999.
In 1999, the biggest relaunch occurred, with
BBC One bulletins, BBC World, BBC News 24,
and BBC News Online all adopting a common
style. One of the most significant changes
was the gradual adoption of the corporate
image by the BBC regional news programmes,
giving a common style across local, national
and international BBC television news. This
also included Newyddion, the main news programme
of Welsh language channel S4C, produced by
BBC News Wales.
2000s
Following the relaunch of BBC News the previous
year, regional headlines were included at
the start of the BBC One news bulletins in
2000. The English regions did however lose
five minutes at the end of their bulletins,
due to a new headline round-up at 18:55. 2000
also saw the Nine O'Clock News moved to the
later time of 22:00. This was in response
to ITN who had just moved their popular News
at Ten programme to 23:00. ITN briefly returned
News at Ten but following poor ratings when
head to head against the BBC's Ten O'Clock
News, the ITN bulletin was moved to 22.30,
where it remained until 14 January 2008.
The retirement of Peter Sissons and departure
of Michael Buerk from the Ten O'Clock News
led to changes in the BBC One bulletin presenting
team on 20 January 2003. The Six O'Clock News
became double headed with George Alagiah and
Sophie Raworth after Huw Edwards and Fiona
Bruce moved to present the Ten. At the time
of the changes, a new set design featuring
a projected background image of a fictional
newsroom was introduced. New programme titles
were introduced on 16 February 2004 to match
those of BBC News 24.
BBC News 24 and BBC World introduced a new
style of presentation in December 2003, that
was slightly altered on 5 July 2004 to mark
50 years of BBC Television News.
The individual positions of editor of the
One and Six O'Clock News were replaced by
a new daytime position in November 2005. Kevin
Bakhurst became the first Controller of BBC
News 24, replacing the position of editor.
Amanda Farnsworth became daytime editor while
Craig Oliver was later named editor of the
Ten O'Clock News. The bulletins also began
to be simulcast with News 24, as a way of
pooling resources.
Bulletins received new titles and a new set
design in May 2006, to allow for Breakfast
to move into the main studio for the first
time since 1997. The new set featured Barco
videowall screens with a background of the
London skyline used for main bulletins and
originally an image of cirrus clouds against
a blue sky for Breakfast. This was later replaced
following viewer criticism. The studio bore
similarities with the ITN-produced ITV News
in 2004, though ITN uses a CSO Virtual studio
rather than the actual screens at BBC News.
BBC News became part of a new BBC Journalism
group in November 2006 as part of a restructuring
of the BBC. The then-Director of BBC News,
Helen Boaden reported to the then-Deputy Director-General
and head of the journalism group, Mark Byford
until he was made redundant in 2010.
On 18 October 2007, Mark Thompson announced
a six-year plan, Delivering Creative Future,
merging the television current affairs department
into a new "News Programmes" division. Thompson's
announcement, in response to a £2 billion
shortfall in funding, would, he said, deliver
"a smaller but fitter BBC" in the digital
age, by cutting its payroll and, in 2013,
selling the Television Centre.
The various separate newsrooms for television,
radio and online operations were merged into
a single multimedia newsroom. Programme making
within the newsrooms was brought together
to form a multimedia programme making department.
BBC World Service director Peter Horrocks
said that the changes would achieve efficiency
at a time of cost-cutting at the BBC. In his
blog, he wrote that by using the same resources
across the various broadcast media meant fewer
stories could be covered, or by following
more stories, there would be fewer ways to
broadcast them.
A new graphics and video playout system was
introduced for production of television bulletins
in January 2007. This coincided with a new
structure to BBC World News bulletins, editors
favouring a section devoted to analysing the
news stories reported on.
The first new BBC News bulletin since the
Six O'Clock News was announced in July 2007
following a successful trial in the Midlands.
The summary, lasting 90 seconds, has been
broadcast at 20:00 on weekdays since December
2007 and bears similarities with 60 Seconds
on BBC Three, but also includes headlines
from the various BBC regions and a weather
summary.
As part of a long-term cost cutting programme,
bulletins were renamed the BBC News at One,
Six and Ten respectively in April 2008 while
BBC News 24 was renamed BBC News and moved
into the same studio as the bulletins at BBC
Television Centre. BBC World was renamed BBC
World News and regional news programmes were
also updated with the new presentation style,
designed by Lambie-Nairn.
The studio moves also meant that Studio N9,
previously used for BBC World, was closed,
and operations moved to the previous studio
of BBC News 24. Studio N9 was later refitted
to match the new branding, and was used for
the BBC's UK local elections and European
elections coverage in early June 2009.
2010s
A strategy review of the BBC in March 2010
confirmed that having "the best journalism
in the world" would form one of five key editorial
policies, as part of changes subject to public
consultation and BBC Trust approval.
After a period of suspension in late 2012,
Helen Boaden ceased to be the Director of
BBC News. On 16 April 2013, incoming BBC Director-General
Tony Hall named James Harding, a former editor
of The Times of London newspaper as Director
of News and Current Affairs.
From August 2012 to March 2013, all news operations
moved from Television Centre to new facilities
in the refurbished and extended Broadcasting
House, in Portland Place. The move began in
October 2012, and also included the BBC World
Service, which moved from Bush House following
the expiry of the BBC's lease. This new extension
to the north and east, referred to as "New
Broadcasting House", includes several new
state-of-the-art radio and television studios
centred around an 11-storey atrium. The move
began with the domestic programme The Andrew
Marr Show on 2 September 2012 and concluded
with the move of the BBC News channel and
domestic news bulletins on 18 March 2013.
The newsroom houses all domestic bulletins
and programmes on both television and radio,
as well as the BBC World Service international
radio networks and the BBC World News international
television channel.
Broadcasting media
Television
BBC News is responsible for the news programmes
– and some documentary content – on the
BBC's general television channels, as well
as the news coverage on the BBC News channel
in the UK and 22 hours of programming for
the corporation's BBC World News channel internationally.
Coverage for BBC Parliament is carried out
on behalf on the BBC at Millbank Studios though
BBC News provides editorial and journalistic
content. BBC News content is also output onto
the BBC's digital interactive television services
under the BBC Red Button brand, and until
2012, on the Ceefax teletext system.
The distinctive music on all BBC television
news programmes was introduced in 1999 and
composed by David Lowe. It was part of the
extensive re-branding which commenced in 1999
and features the classic 'BBC Pips'. The general
theme was used not only on bulletins on BBC
One but News 24, BBC World and local news
programmes in the BBC's Nations and Regions.
Lowe was also responsible for the music on
Radio One's Newsbeat. The theme has had several
changes since 1999, the latest in March 2013.
The BBC Arabic Television news channel launched
on 11 March 2008, a Persian-language channel
followed on 14 January 2009, broadcasting
from the Peel wing of Broadcasting House;
both include news, analysis, interviews, sports
and highly cultural programmes and are run
by the BBC World Service and funded from a
grant-in-aid from the British Foreign Office.
Radio
BBC Radio News produces bulletins for the
BBC's national radio stations and provides
content for local BBC radio stations via the
General News Service, a BBC-internal news
distribution service. BBC News does not produce
the BBC's regional news bulletins, which are
produced individually by the BBC nations and
regions themselves. The BBC World Service
broadcasts to some 150 million people in
English as well as 27 languages across the
globe. BBC Radio News is a patron of The Radio
Academy.
Online
BBC News Online is the BBC's news website.
Launched in November 1997, it is one of the
most popular news websites in the UK, reaching
over a quarter of the UK's internet users,
and worldwide, with around 14 million global
readers every month. The website contains
comprehensive international news coverage
as well as entertainment, sport, science,
and political news.
Many television and radio programmes are also
available to view on the BBC iPlayer service.
The BBC News channel is also available to
view 24 hours a day, while video and radio
clips are also available within online news
articles.
Opinions
Political and commercial independence
The BBC is required by its charter to be free
from both political and commercial influence
and answers only to its viewers and listeners.
This political objectivity is sometimes questioned.
For instance, The Daily Telegraph carried
a letter from the KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky,
referring to it as "The Red Service". Books
have been written on the subject, including
anti-BBC works like Truth Betrayed by W J
West and The Truth Twisters by Richard Deacon.
The BBC's Editorial Guidelines on Politics
and Public Policy state that whilst "the voices
and opinions of opposition parties must be
routinely aired and challenged", "the government
of the day will often be the primary source
of news".
The BBC is regularly accused by the government
of the day of bias in favour of the opposition
and, by the opposition, of bias in favour
of the government. Similarly, during times
of war, the BBC is often accused by the UK
government, or by strong supporters of British
military campaigns, of being overly sympathetic
to the view of the enemy. An edition of Newsnight
at the start of the Falklands War in 1982
was described as "almost treasonable" by John
Page, MP, who objected to Peter Snow saying
"if we believe the British".
During the first Gulf War, critics of the
BBC took to using the satirical name "Baghdad
Broadcasting Corporation". During the Kosovo
War, the BBC were labelled the "Belgrade Broadcasting
Corporation" by British ministers, although
Slobodan Milosević claimed that the BBC's
coverage had been biased against his nation.
Conversely, some of those who style themselves
anti-establishment in the United Kingdom or
who oppose foreign wars have accused the BBC
of pro-establishment bias or of refusing to
give an outlet to "anti-war" voices. Following
the 2003 invasion of Iraq a study, by the
Cardiff University School of Journalism, of
the reporting of the war, found that nine
out of 10 references to weapons of mass destruction
during the war assumed that Iraq possessed
them, and only one in 10 questioned this assumption.
It also found that out of the main British
broadcasters covering the war the BBC was
the most likely to use the British government
and military as its source. It was also the
least likely to use independent sources, like
the Red Cross, who were more critical of the
war. When it came to reporting Iraqi casualties
the study found fewer reports on the BBC than
on the other three main channels. The report's
author, Justin Lewis, wrote "Far from revealing
an anti-war BBC, our findings tend to give
credence to those who criticised the BBC for
being too sympathetic to the government in
its war coverage. Either way, it is clear
that the accusation of BBC anti-war bias fails
to stand up to any serious or sustained analysis."
Prominent BBC appointments are constantly
assessed by the British media and political
establishment for signs of political bias.
The appointment of Greg Dyke as Director-General
was highlighted by press sources because Dyke
was a Labour Party member and former activist,
as well as a friend of Tony Blair. The BBC's
current Political Editor, Nick Robinson, was
some years ago a chairman of the Young Conservatives
and did, as a result, attract informal criticism
from the former Labour government, but his
predecessor Andrew Marr faced similar claims
from the right because he was editor of The
Independent, a liberal-leaning newspaper,
before his appointment in 2000.
Mark Thompson, former Director-General of
the BBC, admitted the organisation has been
biased "towards the left" in the past. He
said, "In the BBC I joined 30 years ago, there
was, in much of current affairs, in terms
of people's personal politics, which were
quite vocal, a massive bias to the left".
He then added, "The organization did struggle
then with impartiality. Now it is a completely
different generation. There is much less overt
tribalism among the young journalists who
work for the BBC."
India
In 2008, the BBC was criticised by some for
referring to the terrorists who carried out
the November 2008 Mumbai attacks as "gunmen".
The response to this added to prior criticism
from some Indian commentators suggesting that
the BBC may have an Indophobic bias.
Hutton Inquiry
BBC News was at the centre of one of the largest
political controversies in recent years. Three
BBC News reports quoted an anonymous source
that stated the British government had embellished
the September Dossier with misleading exaggerations
of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.
The government denounced the reports and accused
the corporation of poor journalism.
In subsequent weeks the corporation stood
by the report, saying that it had a reliable
source. Following intense media speculation,
David Kelly was named in the press as the
source for Gilligan's story on 9 July 2003.
Kelly was found dead, by suicide, in a field
close to his home early on 18 July. An inquiry
led by Lord Hutton was announced by the British
government the following day to investigate
the circumstances leading to Kelly's death,
concluding that "Dr. Kelly took his own life."
In his report on 28 January 2004, Lord Hutton
concluded that Gilligan's original accusation
was "unfounded" and the BBC's editorial and
management processes were "defective". In
particular, it specifically criticised the
chain of management that caused the BBC to
defend its story. The BBC Director of News,
Richard Sambrook, the report said, had accepted
Gilligan's word that his story was accurate
in spite of his notes being incomplete. Davies
had then told the BBC Board of Governors that
he was happy with the story and told the Prime
Minister that a satisfactory internal inquiry
had taken place. The Board of Governors, under
the chairman's, Gavyn Davies, guidance, accepted
that further investigation of the Government's
complaints were unnecessary.
Because of the criticism in the Hutton report,
Davies resigned on the day of publication.
BBC News faced an important test, reporting
on itself with the publication of the report,
but by common consent managed this "independently,
impartially and honestly". Davies' resignation
was followed by the resignation of Director
General, Greg Dyke, the following day, and
the resignation of Gilligan on 30 January.
While undoubtedly a traumatic experience for
the corporation, an ICM poll in April 2003
indicated that it had sustained its position
as the best and most trusted provider of news.
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The BBC has faced accusations of holding both
anti-Israel and anti-Palestine bias.
Douglas Davis, the London correspondent of
The Jerusalem Post, has described the BBC's
coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict as "a
relentless, one-dimensional portrayal of Israel
as a demonic, criminal state and Israelis
as brutal oppressors [which] bears all the
hallmarks of a concerted campaign of vilification
that, wittingly or not, has the effect of
delegitimising the Jewish state and pumping
oxygen into a dark old European hatred that
dared not speak its name for the past half-century.".
However two large independent studies, one
conducted by Loughborough University and the
other by Glasgow University's Media Group
concluded that Israeli perspectives are given
greater coverage.
Critics of the BBC argue that the Balen Report
proves systematic bias against Israel in headline
news programming. Daily Mail and The Daily
Telegraph criticised the BBC for spending
hundreds of thousands of British tax payers'
pounds from preventing the report being released
to the public.
Jeremy Bowen, the Middle East Editor for BBC
world news, was singled out specifically for
bias by the BBC Trust which concluded that
he violated "BBC guidelines on accuracy and
impartiality."
An independent panel appointed by the BBC
Trust was set up in 2006 to review the impartiality
of the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. The panel's assessment was that
"apart from individual lapses, there was little
to suggest deliberate or systematic bias."
While noting a "commitment to be fair accurate
and impartial" and praising much of the BBC's
coverage the independent panel concluded "that
BBC output does not consistently give a full
and fair account of the conflict. In some
ways the picture is incomplete and, in that
sense, misleading." It notes that, "the failure
to convey adequately the disparity in the
Israeli and Palestinian experience, [reflects]
the fact that one side is in control and the
other lives under occupation".
Writing in the FT, Philip Stephens, one of
the panellists, later accused the BBC's director-general,
Mark Thompson, of misrepresenting the panel's
conclusions. He further opined "My sense is
that BBC news reporting has also lost a once
iron-clad commitment to objectivity and a
necessary respect for the democratic process.
If I am right, the BBC, too, is lost". Mark
Thompson published a rebuttal in the FT the
next day.
The description by one BBC correspondent reporting
on the funeral of Yassir Arafat that she had
been left with tears in her eyes led to other
questions of impartiality, particularly from
Martin Walker in a guest opinion piece in
The Times, who picked out the apparent case
of Fayad Abu Shamala, the BBC Arabic Service
correspondent, who told a Hamas rally on 6
May 2001, that journalists in Gaza were "waging
the campaign shoulder to shoulder together
with the Palestinian people."
Walker argues that the independent inquiry
was flawed for two reasons. Firstly, because
the time period over which it was conducted
surrounded the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza
and Ariel Sharon's stroke, which produced
more positive coverage than usual. Furthermore,
he wrote, the inquiry only looked at the BBC's
domestic coverage, and excluded output on
the BBC World Service and BBC World.
Tom Gross accused the BBC of glorifying Hamas
suicide bombers, and condemned its policy
of inviting guests such as Jenny Tonge and
Tom Paulin who have compared Israeli soldiers
to Nazis. Writing for the BBC, Paulin said
Israeli soldiers should be "shot dead" like
Hitler's S.S, and said he could "understand
how suicide bombers feel." According to Gross,
Paulin and Tonge continue to be invited as
regular guests, and they are among the most
frequent contributors to their most widely-screened
arts programme.
The BBC also faced criticism for not airing
a Disasters Emergency Committee aid appeal
for Palestinians who suffered in Gaza during
22-day war there in late 2008/early 2009.
Most other major UK broadcasters did air this
appeal, but rival Sky News did not.
British journalist Julie Burchill has accused
BBC of creating a "climate of fear" for British
Jews over its "excessive coverage" of Israel
compared to other nations.
Partners
BBC and ABC also share video segments and
reporters as needed in producing their newscasts.
with the BBC showing ABC World News with David
Muir in the UK.
The view of foreign governments
BBC News reporters and broadcasts are now
and have in the past been banned in several
countries primarily for reporting which has
been unfavourable to the ruling government.
For example, correspondents were banned by
the former apartheid régime of South Africa.
The BBC was banned in Zimbabwe under Mugabe
for eight years as a terrorist organisation
until being allowed to operate again over
a year after the 2008 elections. The BBC was
banned in Burma after BBC's coverage and commentary
on anti-government protests there in September
2007. The ban was lifted 4 years later on
September 2011. Other cases have included
Uzbekistan, China, and Pakistan. The BBC online
news site's Persian version was blocked from
the Iranian internet in 2006. The BBC News
website was made available in China again
in March 2008.
See also
BBC News Special
BBC newsreaders and journalists
BBC television news programmes
List of BBC newsreaders and reporters
List of former BBC newsreaders and journalists
References
External links
BBC News at BBC Online
BBC News in focus: Photos from the past six
decades The Guardian
