BBC News

BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. 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 50 foreign news bureaus with more than 250 correspondents around the world. Deborah Turness has been the CEO of news and current affairs since September 2022.

In 2019, it was reported in an Ofcom report that the BBC spent £136m on news during the period April 2018 to March 2019. BBC News' domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, in Broadcasting House in central London. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in London. Through BBC English Regions, the BBC also has regional centres across England and national news centres in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. All nations and English regions produce their own local news programmes and other current affairs and sport programmes.

The BBC is a quasi-autonomous corporation authorised by royal charter, making it operationally independent of the government.

History

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 7:00 pm, and to force it to use wire service copy instead of reporting on its own. The BBC gradually gained the right to edit the copy and, in 1934, created its own news operation. However, it could not broadcast news before 6 PM until World War II. In addition to news, 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 radio news' control in the 1950s. Correspondents provided reports for both outlets, and the first televised 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 (and on other occasions by Andrew Timothy).

On-screen newsreaders were introduced a year later in 1955 Kenneth Kendall (the first to appear in vision), 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 (then known as Talks Department) with it. 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.

In 1958, Hugh Carleton Greene became head of News and Current Affairs.

1960s

On 1 January 1960, Greene became Director-General. Greene made changes that were aimed at making BBC reporting more similar to it competitor 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 having to cover stories for radio too.

On 20 June 1960, Nan Winton, the first female BBC network newsreader, appeared in vision. 19 September 1960 saw the start of the radio news and current affairs programme ''The Ten O'clock News''.

BBC2 started transmission on 20 April 1964 and began broadcasting a new show, '' 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 ("super") 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 (a similar Teletext format), and the signing of such programmes as ''See Hear'' (from 1981).

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'' (the latter a weekly review of Parliamentary happenings) 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 (and the BBC's first regional news programme for the South East), 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 aired on Mondays and Fridays only, from the new TVC studios.

The BBC moved production out of Alexandra Palace in 1969. BBC Television News resumed operations the next day with a lunchtime bulletin on BBC1 in black and white from Television Centre, where it remained until March 2013.

This move to a smaller studio with better technical facilities allowed ''Newsroom'' and ''News Review'' to replace back projection with colour-separation overlay. During the 1960s, satellite communication had become possible; however, 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 BBC2 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 BBC2 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 become 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

In 1980, 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''.

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".Denis Taylor, "BBC broadcasts jammed", ''The Times'', 4 May 1982, p. 2.

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" (suggesting favouritism towards the FR Yugoslavia government over ethnic Albanian rebels) by British ministers, although Slobodan Milosević (then FRY president) 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 former 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."

Historian Mark Curtis finds that BBC news resembles a "straightforward state propaganda organ" that provides "critical support for the ritish and Westernelite's promotion of foreign policy", such as the 2003 war of aggression against Iraq. He says this militant nationalism is "not even subtle", and, citing Glasgow university, says BBC News is a chief example of "manufactured production of ideology."

Following the EU referendum in 2016, some critics suggested that the BBC is biased in favour of leaving the EU. For instance, in 2018, the BBC received complaints from people who took issue that the BBC was not sufficiently covering anti-Brexit marches whilst giving smaller-scale events hosted by former UKIP leader Nigel Farage more airtime. On the other hand, a poll released by YouGov showed that 45% of people who voted to leave the EU thought that the BBC was 'actively anti-Brexit' compared to 13% of the same kinds of voters who think the BBC is pro-Brexit.

India

In 2008, the BBC Hindi was criticised by some Indian outlets 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. In March 2015, the BBC was criticised for a BBC ''Storyville'' documentary interviewing one of the rapists in India. In spite of a ban ordered by the Indian High court, the BBC still aired the documentary "India's Daughter" outside India.

Hutton Inquiry

BBC News was at the centre of a political controversy following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Three BBC News reports (Andrew Gilligan's on ''Today'', Gavin Hewitt's on ''The Ten O'Clock News'' and another on ''Newsnight'') quoted an anonymous source that stated the British government (particularly the Prime Minister's office) 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 (of the Board of Governors) 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 hichbears 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.".Davis, Douglas. "Hatred in the air: the BBC, Israel and Antisemitism" in Iganski, Paul & Kosmin, Barry. (eds) ''A New Anti-Semitism? Debating Judeophobia in 21st century Britain''. Profile Books, 2003, p. 130. 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. The '' 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."''The Independent'', 16 April 2009
Bowen 'breached rules on 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, eflectsthe fact that one side is in control and the other lives under occupation".

Writing in the ''Financial Times'', 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 (August 2005 to January 2006) 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 between late 2008 and 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 share video segments and reporters as needed in producing their newscasts. with the BBC showing ''ABC World News Tonight with David Muir'' in the UK. However, in July 2017, BBC announced a new partnership with CBS News allows both organisations to share video, editorial content, and additional newsgathering resources in New York, London, Washington and around the world.

BBC News subscribes to wire services from leading international agencies including PA Media (formerly Press Association), Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. In April 2017, the BBC dropped Associated Press in favour of an enhanced service from AFP.

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 (officially Myanmar) after their coverage and commentary on anti-government protests there in September 2007. The ban was lifted four years later in September 2011. Other cases have included Uzbekistan,
China, and Pakistan. BBC Persian, the BBC's Persian language news site, was blocked from the Iranian internet in 2006. The BBC News website was made available in China again in March 2008, but , was blocked again.

In June 2015, the Rwandan government placed an indefinite ban on BBC broadcasts following the airing of a controversial documentary regarding the 1994 Rwandan genocide, ''Rwanda's Untold Story'', broadcast on BBC2 on 1 October 2014. The UK's Foreign Office recognised "the hurt caused in Rwanda by some parts of the documentary".

In February 2017, reporters from the BBC (as well as the '' Daily Mail'', ''The New York Times'', Politico, CNN, and others) were denied access to a United States White House briefing.

In 2017, BBC India was banned for a period of 5 years from covering all national parks and sanctuaries in India. Following the withdrawal of CGTN's UK broadcaster licence on 4 February 2021 by Ofcom, China banned BBC News from airing in China.China bans BBC News after UK pulls CGTN's license
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See also

* BBC newsreaders and journalists
* BBC television news programmes
* :List of BBC newsreaders and reporters
* List of former BBC newsreaders and journalists

References

External links

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BBC News in focus: Photos from the past six decades
The Guardian

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1922 establishments in the United Kingdom
BBC television news programmes
BBC World News shows
Multilingual news services
Television news in the United Kingdom
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