Launched in 1988, Newshour broke new ground for BBC World Service. The idea was to provide world news headlines in a global context and broadcast the voices of those making the news. Today, it presents 60 minutes of essential listening for people who want a fresh and clear perspective of stories from across the globe. It is packed with newscasts, interviews, and analysis from the BBC's most experienced correspondents. Heard by almost a million listeners each week, Newshour treats its audiences to a host of veteran BBC journalists, including Owen Bennett-Jones, Claire Bolderson, Alex Brodie, Lyse Doucet, Robin Lustig, Julian Marshall, and Judy Swallow.

Newshour is always at the center of breaking news worldwide. It was on the scene, for example, moments after the first planes struck on 9/11, then reporting the war in Afghanistan, the fall of the Taliban, the crisis over Iraq, and the removal of Saddam Hussein. The program continues covering the complex aftermath of the Iraq war with reports from inside the country and ongoing examination of its political and diplomatic impact throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, the United States, and Europe.

Newshour also provides special coverage. In December 2003, for example, Newshour contributed to the special BBC World Service HIV/AIDS series with reports from Brazil, South Africa, and Nigeria. When the U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told Newshour that the Bush administration was not backtracking on its commitment to spend $15 billion on AIDS over the next five years, it made headlines around the world.

Newshour — leading the pack with timely, accurate, essential world news.

Serving Audiences in a Disconnected World
by Philip Harding, Director of English Networks and News
BBC World Service

This is a momentous time for all of us in news broadcasting, a time when global news services have never been more prominent or important. The war in Iraq, the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, the increasingly perilous security situation, and the new diplomatic landscape have been uppermost in everyone's mind.

Wars have always been one of the greatest tests for news organizations, but particularly so for public radio since we have a much more direct relationship with our audience than our commercial rivals do. The BBC committed massive resources to covering the war in Iraq. In fact, that conflict saw the biggest ever news operation in the history of the World Service, over 220 hours of continuous coverage and more than 150 correspondents, producers, and technicians in the field.

Keyholes
How wars are reported by electronic media depends largely on three factors: first, the access that journalists can get, second, the technology at their disposal to get their material back, and third, the values that the entire news operation adopts during the conflict. So, what have we learned?

In terms of reporting the war, correspondents embedded with military units had unprecedented access to the campaign and gave the coverage a drama and immediacy we've not seen before. Embedding also allowed far more editorial freedom than we had expected.

But all the powerful sounds and images produced by our teams on the front line could never provide the big picture. As one of our correspondents memorably said, "It was like watching a war through several keyholes." The big challenge for us at the BBC was to ensure these "keyhole reports" were always placed in their full context.

In terms of technology, the war did prove to be a significant breakthrough. The lightweight equipment, the SAT-phones and hand-held dishes worked, and that meant we could broadcast live pretty much anywhere, anytime — even from the tank turret as the forces advanced into Baghdad.

But even more important than all the access and all the technology were the values.

The BBC started its Iraq coverage with some clear aims, ones that we've kept in the months since. First accuracy. In a situation where a lot of speculation and half-truths howl around, we have to get the basics right — no breaking rumors masquerading as breaking news. Of course, we want to be fast, but it's always better to be second and right than first and wrong.

Second, we must combine that commitment to accuracy with enough analysis to ensure that our audiences can make sense of what is going on. Third, we report all views on this conflict and allow all varying viewpoints their say.

Finally, our coverage is comprehensive. During the war, we reported from the front line with correspondents in all the obvious places — with American and British forces, in Baghdad, with the Kurds in the north, in Doha, and so on. But we also made sure to hear from our teams in Amman, Cairo, and Teheran, from Riyadh, Paris, Madrid, and Tokyo.

Complexities in Context
Today, it is equally important that our reporting isn't just about the bombings and the shootings, but that we also go deeper and look at what is happening across Iraq, that we try to make sense of the complex currents and tensions at work there.

A particularly compelling example of this aired on Newshour. A group of Iraqi doctors — highly articulate, highly educated men — were talking about a recent wave of attacks. They condemned the violence and the killings, but incredibly, they also said they thought the CIA might be behind some of the bombings. As fantastic as that sounds, offensive even to some ears, if that's what a group of Iraqi doctors believes, then we have a responsibility to our audiences to report it.

That's quite a role and quite a responsibility, but it is one that we must fulfill.

I think the war in Iraq and events since 9/11 have demonstrated one key thing about our audiences. They are hungry to know about the world and to try to understand it, to get some grasp of how it works and why their lives are being shaped by events that often take place thousands of miles away. I would argue that public broadcasters have a duty, a mission even, to bring that world view to our audiences.

As you know, the BBC World Service doesn't only broadcast in English, it broadcasts in 42 other languages as well. That means we have teams of correspondents based in just about every country and versed in every culture in the world. This year, we are going to harness this expertise for our English programs and effectively double the number of our overseas bureaus to 91 reporting for BBC News. Whatever the story, wherever it is, we will have someone on the ground when it happens, and we will have someone who understands the implications of what has happened.

Reconciling the Paradox
While the world may be increasingly connected technologically, it is far from connected in terms of mutual understanding. Here's the paradox:

• Today's world is increasingly interdependent, yet increasingly mistrustful and fearful.
• It is a world that is awash with information, yet one in which ignorance and propaganda are rife.
• It is a world in which issues are more complex, but where news coverage is often simplistic.
• It's very much a disconnected world in an era of globalization.

Some media organizations play to this sense of disconnection and alienation. News programs that appeal to an audience's pre-existing beliefs and prejudices may win audiences, may please the advertisers and the shareholders, but they do not serve audiences well.

At its best, public broadcasting has the potential to foster understanding and establish a genuine dialog across cultural, linguistic, and national boundaries. And I think this points to a new and very important role for public broadcasting and especially for global public broadcasters like the BBC.

The nature of the relationship between broadcasters and audiences is changing, and it's a change that underscores the importance of the role of public broadcasting in a disconnected world.

New technology provides an immediate, informative, intelligent, interactive platform for discussion and debate. Today's international broadcasting is now very much a two-way dialog of interactivity, a global arena for the exchange of views. And the scale is extraordinary.

In the first three weeks of the Iraq war, for example, the World Service received 360,000 e-mails from our listeners, half of them from the United States. Text messages to English programs grew ten-fold to 1,000 a day. We believe that this type of exchange — via interactive, public forums — can really help to achieve greater understanding, openness, and dialog.

At a time when commercial broadcasters are becoming more skilled at targeting their programs to the audiences advertisers want to reach, I would argue that creating wide, public, interactive forums is a critically important role for the BBC and for public broadcasters everywhere to assume.

As the market fragments and niche broadcasting grows, audiences are increasingly only going to hear about things with which they are familiar, views with which they are comfortable. But for a well-informed, well-educated, fully functioning democratic society, it is vitally important that audiences are able to come up against the unexpected and the uncomfortable, that they don't just hear what they would like to hear. In a world awash with information, there is even more need for a place where people feel they are being told the unvarnished truth, where they can rely on impartial analysis to make sense of that sea of information, and where they can listen to and take part in a debate in which all voices can be heard.

New Use
In addition to burgeoning new technologies, there is another big change underway in the world of international news — the changing ways that our audiences use us.

The research tells us that audiences are no longer looking to a single source of news, something we are finding in a lot of countries. They no longer seem to be satisfied with just one voice no matter how authoritative or reliable it is, whether it's the BBC or NPR. I suspect, as consumer choice widens and media markets fragment, it is inevitable that people are now putting together personal media portfolios.

It means that audiences want a variety of perspectives on events. Often they want a domestic take and a world view, too. They want to be able to compare and contrast and make up their own minds, and increasingly, they want to see the world through different prisms. This is certainly the very strong feedback we're getting from the United States, from your audiences in thousands of e-mails.

Public radio audiences appreciate hearing different world perspectives. And I think this goes a long way to explaining the growing success of BBC programs and why we have now become an integral part of the main daytime public radio schedule where we sit alongside and complement the excellent programs you get from PRI, NPR, and station-based and independent producers.

Janus
I'd like to end on a personal note.

Like the editor of every international news organization, I've had a lot going through my mind in recent months. I've touched on some of these ideas here:

• The importance of establishing a dialog between different nations and cultures, of connecting the world in dialog and understanding as well as technologically.
• The importance of understanding the changing nature and demands of our audiences, both in terms of interactivity and of offering them a variety of world perspectives.
• The importance of defending our editorial freedom and ensuring that we present a full range of views.
• The importance of continually questioning, not just those we interview, but ourselves, too, about our approach to news programs and especially how we maintain impartiality.

Above all, however, the last few months have reminded me of three things.

First, how much we rely on the professionalism, commitment, and courage of our reporters and program-makers in the field. When we talk about connecting with a world audience, these are the people who make the first and most important connection. They are the eyes and ears for our audiences, and it is their skill and their professionalism — often in very dangerous situations — that underpin everything else that we do.

I believe that we and our audiences owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

Second, we must never compromise on our core values: accuracy, integrity, independence, impartiality, trust. They must be non-negotiable.

My third conclusion is about our responsibility and role as public broadcasters in a world that is at once globalized and yet, at times, filled with mistrust, misinformation, oppression, hate, and division.

It is to use our skills to provide trusted, reliable news. To be committed to putting those events in a broader context and analyzing them in an independent and impartial way. And to be the new catalyst for dialog, debate, and mutual understanding.

By doing all of these things, I believe that international news broadcasting can in the future help reconnect a disconnected world, can be the catalyst for greater mutual understanding, and can contribute to making the world a better place.