6 November 2018
The BBC launched its largest bureau outside the UK in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, on 5 November. Around 300 of the 600 BBC journalists working across Africa are based in the new, state-of-the-art facility.
“Our most important investment will be in training the next generation of African reporters and producers to world-class standards,” Francesca Unsworth, Director of BBC News, said.
The expansion is being funded by $376m (£289m) from the UK government and the production facilities at the bureau include a TV studio and two further live broadcast positions, two radio studios, two radio workspaces and five TV edit suites.
The Nairobi bureau follows the opening of another major hub in Nigeria’s commercial city of Lagos, where three new language services are based, while there has also been an expansion of the French service based in Senegal’s capital, Dakar.
“We are celebrating the African journalists and programme makers here today who will carry the torch of BBC professionalism, accuracy and impartiality into the future,” Rachael Akidi Okwir, Head of East Africa Languages for the BBC World Service said.
Nairobi-based BBC services: Afaan Oromo: Language of Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group; Amharic: Ethiopia’s official language; Tigrinya: The main working language of Eritrea, along with Arabic. Also spoken in Ethiopia
Lagos-based BBC services: Igbo: An official Nigerian language. Also spoken in Equatorial Guinea; Yoruba: Spoken in south-western Nigeria and some other parts of West Africa, especially Benin and Togo; Pidgin: A creole version of English widely spoken in southern Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea
Photo: Armstong Too/BBC
21 May 2018
News content from the BBC in Thai and Burmese is now available via Thailand’s leading news website, Khaosod. Selected daily updated stories from the BBC News Thai website, bbc.com/thai, and the BBC News Burmese website, bbc.com/burmese, appear on Khaosod’s Thai- and Burmese-language indexes.
BBC News Thai Editor, Nopporn Wong-Anan says: “I am delighted to see our news stories published on a respected website such as Khaosod. I hope that, thanks to this collaboration, new users in Thailand will be able to sample our journalism – from BBC News Thai and our colleagues at BBC News Burmese – and be informed by the BBC’s globally trusted news coverage.”
Executive Editor of Khaosod, Chumchan Chamniprasart (pictured right), commented: “Khaosod is excited to enter a partnership with the BBC in disseminating news, articles and interviews with various viewpoints from BBC News Thai and BBC News Burmese in an age when vast amounts of information circulate. We are firm in our belief that, as accurate mainstream news sources, both Khaosod and BBC serve the public through journalism.”
BBC News Thai reaches around 1.6m people every week via its website bbc.com/thai and social platforms such as Facebook (with over 2.2m followers), Instagram and YouTube. The service covers national, regional and international politics, as well as business, culture, health, technology, science and entertainment, women’s issues and social affairs. BBC News Thai also carries material from BBC Learning English for Thai-speaking learners.
BBC News Burmese reaches a weekly audience of 6m via the website bbc.com/burmese, Facebook (with over 13.3m followers, more than a million of whom are in Thailand), Twitter and YouTube, daily radio broadcasts and a Monday to Friday TV news programme.
BBC News Thai and BBC News Burmese are part of the BBC World Service.
19 February 2018
Jamie is currently Deputy Director of the World Service Group and Editorial Director of BBC Global News Ltd (GNL). He has been Acting Director of the World Service Group since the beginning of this year.
As Director, Jamie will lead the BBC’s global news services – BBC World Service, BBC World News and BBC.com – as well as BBC Monitoring. The BBC’s global news services have a weekly audience of 346m and the BBC World Service is currently undergoing its biggest expansion since the 1940s.
Director of BBC News and Current Affairs Francesca Unsworth says: “The BBC’s international news services are more important than ever, and Jamie brings huge editorial and leadership expertise to the Director role. He has a clear and strategic vision for the future of the World Service Group – both editorially and for our commercial services.
“The BBC World Service plays a unique role for the BBC, for Britain, and across the world, and I am confident it has an exciting future under Jamie’s direction.”
Jamie Angus says: “It’s a great honour to be appointed as World Service Director. There’s never been a greater need globally for the BBC’s independent, creative and engaging news services. With the expansion to 41 language services, we are already reaching new audiences everywhere; our English services on TV radio and online remain the gold standard for international news.
“With global concern growing about disinformation, ‘fake news’ and media literacy, the World Service Group has never been in a stronger position to show the way forward. We spot the stories, see the patterns and make sense of the world for our audiences. I’m very pleased to be able to lead that mission in the coming years.”
Jamie was previously the editor of Radio 4’s Today programme, covering high profile stories including the 2015 UK General Election, Scottish Independence referendum and the EU referendum. Under his leadership Today reached record audience figures of 7.4m and won an ARIA Radio Academy gold award for best National Speech Breakfast Programme.
Jamie joined the BBC in 1999 and was previously acting editor of Newsnight, editor of World At One and The World This Weekend, and editor of Daily News Programmes on World Service radio. He worked for the World Service Group in 2010-12 where he commissioned and launched new language TV bulletins in Urdu, Hindi and Swahili and the daily Focus on Africa TV bulletin, and worked on attachment as head of the World News newsroom.
His appointment follows a competitive recruitment process. Jamie replaces Francesca Unsworth, now Director of News and Current Affairs.
