BBC News launches week-long focus on Artificial Intelligence

17 July 2023

BBC News launches week-long focus on Artificial Intelligence

Throughout the week starting 17 July, BBC News is taking a closer look at Artificial Intelligence (AI) – exploring how AI is already affecting our lives, and looking at the ways it could impact all our futures.

Every day BBC News will launch new thought-provoking and informative journalism to help audiences understand what AI is, what it can do, and how it is shaping the world we live in. BBC News will speak to leading experts in the field and deep dive into issues around jobs, security and technology.

It kicks off with an exclusive interview with Ian Hogarth – the recently announced chair of the UK’s AI Foundation Model Taskforce.

In the interview, Hogarth talks to Zoe Kleinman about the importance of tech innovation in Europe, saying that we need to scale up companies in Europe instead of selling them on to be grown by larger global companies, citing the sales the sales of Skype to Ebay and Deep Mind to Google.

He also warns about AI and calls for greater understanding of the risks – telling the BBC “we’ve got to think about how to protect British jobs” and explore how we “really hold these [AI] companies to account in an appropriate way”.

They also discuss the environmental cost of the energy the data centres will need which will add up to “a tremendous carbon footprint”.

An interview with Deep Mind founder Mustafa Suleyman, also out on Monday, explores security, the culture of risk taking in the UK to facilitate significant tech innovation, and the potential impact of AI on the way we live. He told the BBC:

“[AI] is going to be hugely product productive and beneficial for our civilisation. And clearly that also means that some people are going to struggle to make the transition. The question is one of values, how do we compensate those people who need to retrain and rescale and give them opportunities to improve and get back into the workplace. And to me, that’s a question of government subsidisation and support and ultimately, of taxation.”

The full interviews can be found on www.bbc.co.uk/news

Across the week, audiences will be able to learn more across all BBC News platforms – including podcasts on BBC Sounds, news and investigations on the BBC News website and TV packages on the news bulletins and channel, as well as special content for iPlayer.

As AI increases in its capabilities and scope of work, BBC News will look across how it is currently affecting our working lives, and how it could change the job market and affect business. It will also look at the role of AI in education, and how it is already being used in sport and being used to create music and media.

The week also starts with a visual guide to help you understand AI, answering all the questions you need to understand the basics of what AI is, and what it does – from the different types of AI, to how it learns, and how it can understand images.

This follows on from the BBC Sounds ten-part series with Spencer Kelly – Understand: Tech and AI, which aims to demystify the technology in our lives, explore key topics and answers big questions such as ‘Can AI be controlled?’ and ‘Will AI take my job?’

Upcoming highlights will include Click with Marc Cieslak: Marc will create Click’s own AI ‘Gogglebox’, and an iPlayer special on AI Moments that Made your Jaw Drop.

More news and content will be launched every day this week, with range of BBC global platforms sharing the focus on AI including:

BBC Future – BBC.com’s science section will be publishing articles including the A-Z guide of artificial intelligence terms, how to spot an AI cheater and how AI companies are buying up the rights to actors, musicians and personalities.

BBC Worklife will also be looking at the effect AI can have on your personal and professional life, including how AI can make you feel terrible about yourself – but it shouldn’t and how AI could save Gen Z’s professional futures.

Acting Chair of the BBC appointed

2 June 2023

Acting Chair of the BBC appointed

The UK Government has today confirmed Professor Dame Elan Closs Stephens as the Acting Chair of the BBC.

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer made the appointment following consultation with the BBC Board, in line with the terms of the BBC’s Royal Charter.

Dame Elan will replace Richard Sharp who will step down on 27 June.

Dame Elan has been a non-executive director on the BBC Board since July 2017, and prior to that was the Trustee for Wales on the BBC Trust (2010 – 2017). Between 2019 and 2022, she was Chair of the Commercial Holdings Board for BBC Studios. Under the BBC’s Charter an Acting Chair must be an existing non-executive director on the BBC Board.

Dame Elan says: “It’s a huge honour to be appointed by the Secretary of State as Acting Chair and I am grateful to my fellow Board Members for putting their trust in me. As a Board, we will champion the licence fee payer across all of the UK; ensure the BBC is a vital partner for the UK creative industries; maintain trust and drive change to make the BBC fit for a fast changing media landscape. There is much work to be done.”

Dame Elan is an experienced chair and non-executive, with a distinguished career in broadcasting, the creative industries and academia. She is a former Chair of the Welsh-language broadcaster, S4C, and is currently the Pro-Chancellor and Professor Emerita in Communications and Creative Industries at Aberystwyth University. She is the Electoral Commissioner for Wales.

Dame Elan will remain in post as Acting Chair while the UK Government undertakes the process to appoint a new, permanent BBC Chair; this process is expected to take several months.

The BBC Board says: “Elan has been an active and distinguished member of the BBC Board who has brought huge energy and drive to her role as Member for Wales. We are delighted that she is taking up the role as Acting Chair; she is the ideal choice.”

Dame Elan Closs Stephens Biography

Professor Dame Elan Closs Stephens is an experienced chair and non-executive director who has spent a career in broadcasting, the creative industries and academia. Dame Elan is currently the Pro Chancellor and Professor Emerita in Communications and Creative Industries at Aberystwyth University. She is the Electoral Commissioner for Wales and Member of the UK Electoral Commission Board. She is the Chair of the Wales Public Leaders’ Forum and Chair of the UNESCO International Prize for contribution to the creative economy.

Dame Elan has been a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Professor of the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies at Aberystwyth University, where she is now the Pro-Chancellor. She was educated at Ysgol Dyffryn Nantlle, a comprehensive school in the quarry valleys of North Wales and won an open scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford. She has been awarded nine Honorary Doctorates and Fellowships including from Welsh universities, the Open University, and Somerville College, Oxford. She was High Sheriff of Dyfed 2011–12 and now serves as a Deputy Lieutenant.

Dame Elan has been a member of the BBC’s governing body since 2010, first serving as Member for Wales on the BBC Trust, until its dissolution in 2017, and then as the Welsh member of the BBC Board. As a BBC Board member she has been the Chair of the Wales Committee and also served as Chair of the BBC’s commercial subsidiary from 2019 – 2022. She served for two terms as Chair of the Welsh-language broadcaster, S4C between 1998 – 2006 and subsequently served an additional term as non-executive director on S4C, representing the BBC Trust.

She has served on many cultural bodies including the British Film Institute (BFI) and the British Council. She still serves the BFI as a Non-Executive Director of the IMAX Cinema in Waterloo. She has been a member of the Wales Permanent Secretary’s Board where she was Chair of Corporate Governance. She has served as Vice Chairman of the Welsh Language Board and is a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.

Dame Elan is a native Welsh speaker and lives in Aberystwyth; she has two children.

[Source: BBC Press Office]

New BBC documentary offers a candid look at BBC Persian journalists at work

12 January 2023

New BBC documentary offers a candid look at BBC Persian journalists at work

Reporting Iran: Inside BBC Persian – a new documentary offers a candid look at BBC Persian journalists at work

For the first time the BBC has lifted the lid and gone behind the scenes with the BBC News Persian team, showing the work that goes into reporting Iran while the BBC is banned from the country, and the struggle and turmoil faced by staff.

Produced, directed and filmed by the BBC’s Namak Khoshnaw, Reporting Iran: Inside BBC Persian is available via BBC iPlayer and the BBC News YouTube channel from Thursday 12 January. It will be broadcast by BBC News and BBC World News TV channels from Saturday 14 January.

The documentary takes viewers into the heart of BBC Persian’s newsroom in London as the team covers the unrest in Iran. BBC Persian presenters, reporters and producers talk about the complexities and challenges of carrying out their journalism despite being banned in Iran, and the personal sacrifices they make to do it.

Opening on the day of special reporting marking four weeks following the death of Mahsa Amini – the 22-year-old whose death in police custody has triggered national protest – the documentary shows the work of a presenter who is told while on air that Mahsa’s father is on the line. As she asks the grieving father about the official report just released, stating the cause of his daughter’s death, the line keeps breaking just as he tries to say what he thinks the truth is.

Showing the challenges of reporting despite all the attempts by the Iranian government to hide the truth, the documentary zeroes in on the work of the BBC Persian social-media team. BBC journalists can’t be sent to Iran, and in order to report and counter the disinformation, the team checks information to verify events, people, locations and meta-data.

Similar forensic work goes into the reporting of the disappearance and death of the 16-year-old Nika Shakarami who was among the protesters. The verification process – from confirming the exact locations of the video clips, analysing the officially released video, to talking to eyewitnesses and Nika’s family, to checking the authenticity of the document stating the cause of death – takes the team a few days. One team member compares the work to puzzles they have to put together to build up an accurate picture of events.

In an emotive narrative of Reporting Iran: Inside BBC Persian, the reporting of the dramatic and tragic events unfolding in Iran is intertwined with the personal drama and sacrifice by the BBC journalists whose persecution and harassment by Iranian authorities has been the subject of multiple protests by the BBC and the UN.

The Iranian authorities are not the only source of harassment and abuse suffered by the BBC journalists. The film portrays their treatment by some participants of an opposition rally in Berlin, who taunt and slam BBC Persian for giving platform, in their view, to pro-government figures. It also talks about a presenter who is accused of sympathising with the Iranian security forces, and is subjected to trolling.

Reporting Iran: Inside BBC Persian is full of poignant details that bring to the fore the personal dimension of the journalists who are reporting the country they come from. It closes “With thanks to the staff of BBC Persian, those who appeared in the film and those who chose not to. And with respect to all journalists harassed and intimidated for doing their jobs, in pursuit of the facts.”

BBC News Persian is part of BBC World Service.

[Source: BBC press office]

The Trusted News Initiative creates Asia-Pacific network

9 November 2022

The Trusted News Initiative creates Asia-Pacific network

Partners in the Trusted News Initiative (TNI) have agreed to further expand its global representation by creating a regional Asia-Pacific network.

The media organisations that now make up TNI’s new Asia-Pacific network have received training, funded by the Google News Initiative, to help their journalists navigate the disinformation environment.

The TNI is an industry collaboration of major news and global tech organisations, led by the BBC, working together to stop the spread of disinformation where it poses risk of real-world harm. The creation of the Asia-Pacific network will enable the TNI’s regional partners to share their insights about tackling disinformation and discuss trends in the region. They will draw on their expertise to share best practices and findings with the wider TNI and alert each other to the most dangerous forms of disinformation through the TNI cooperative framework.

The TNI is expanding its Asia-Pacific presence with the addition of the following group of independent news organisations:

ABC (Australia)
Dawn (Pakistan)
Indian Express (India)
Kompas (Indonesia)
NDTV (India)
NHK (Japan)
SBS (Australia)

Senior Controller of BBC News International Services and BBC World Service Director, Liliane Landor (pictured), says: “With the creation of TNI’s first regional network, we are bringing together trusted Asia-Pacific news-publishing organisations to further reinforce our collaboration and to make it even more efficient and productive.”

Head of Google News Lab, Matt Cooke, says: “As part of the Google News Initiative’s ongoing efforts to strengthen journalism and fight misinformation, we’ve worked with a range of academics, news organisations and nonprofits across the globe for several years. Now, we’re supporting the Trusted News Initiative to deliver targeted, expert training workshops on a variety of digital tools to help journalists as they seek to continue day-to-day verification and fact-checking in newsrooms across the region.”

Current TNI partners include AP, AFP, BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Financial Times, Google/YouTube, The Hindu, Information Futures Lab, Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Microsoft, The Nation Media Group, Reuters, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Twitter, and The Washington Post.

The TNI partnership works collectively in four main areas:

Fast Alert: creating a system so organisations can alert each other rapidly when they discover disinformation which threatens human life or disrupts democracy
Intelligence sharing: real-time conversation of equals between news organisations and tech platforms about the evolving nature of harmful disinformation
Media education: sharing insights and research on how audiences and users react to disinformation, thus informing best practice and supporting better digital literacy
Engineering solutions: sharing information on engineering solutions for authentication of trusted news sources and improving the information environment.

This is entirely separate from, and does not in any way affect, the editorial stance of any partner organisation.

[Source: BBC press release]

BBC News Ukraine marks 30th anniversary amid Russian invasion

1 July 2022

BBC News Ukraine marks 30th anniversary amid Russian invasion

As Russia’s war on Ukraine continues to hold the global centre stage, the BBC is marking 30 years of serving its Ukrainian-speaking audience.

On 1 June 1992, the BBC started short- and medium-wave radio broadcasts for then newly independent Ukraine. Today, BBC News Ukraine – BBC News Україна – is serving its audience via the website bbc.ua, its YouTube channel, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram, TikTok and Viber. The BBC News Ukraine Monday to Friday TV news programme is rebroadcast by Ukraine’s national TV channels Espreso, Priamyj and 5 Kanal.

The Ukrainian service was the BBC’s first non-Russian language service for the post-Soviet states. First based in London, with correspondents in Ukraine, the service then moved to digital platforms, primarily delivered from Kyiv. Its TV news programme is produced in and presented from London.

Senior Controller of BBC News International Services and Director of BBC World Service, Liliane Landor, says: “The excellent work of the BBC’s Ukrainian service has gone from strength to strength over the decades. Their coverage of the war really showcases their outstanding and often selfless professionalism, as demonstrated by each and everyone in the team. Their journalism has been crucial, both for their direct audience and for the BBC’s UK and global audiences.”

As Russia launched its assault on Ukraine in the early hours of 24 February 2022, the BBC News Ukraine website bbc.ua started its live coverage, Russia’s war against Ukraine. Published as the first explosions shook Kyiv, the live page, maintained by contributions from every member of the team, hasn’t stopped its flow of comprehensive reporting and analysis.

Since 24 February, the BBC News Ukraine TV news bulletin has been extended from 15 to 30 minutes. During the first two weeks of the war, to keep the viewers abreast of the fast-moving developments, the TV team produced a second daily 30-minute edition while also contributing to the BBC’s English-language news coverage. Weekly channel viewing on YouTube grew tenfold compared to the pre-war period. Since 11 May, two more national TV channels, Priamyj and 5 Kanal, have been rebroadcasting the BBC News Ukraine TV programme.

BBC News Ukraine Editor, Marta Shokalo, comments: “While each of us, be it in Kyiv or London, has been personally affected by the life-shattering developments, our work as journalists has continued. From the very first day we were fully aware – also on a personal level – how crucial trusted information was when life-and-death decisions had to be made. Those of us in Ukraine learned that we can work anywhere, even in a bomb-shelter. I’ll always remember the relief after morning and evening rollcalls confirming every member of the team was accounted for and safe. And the unwavering support of the BBC colleagues in London and around the world.”

On the first week of the Russia invasion, BBC News Ukraine reached a record 5.6 million people across the website bbc.ua and social platforms. Over the following two months, the service has maintained a weekly digital audience that is more than double its average for previous years. Among the service’s popular content, Albiy Shudrya’s piece from the trenches in the Donetsk region about the contents of the Ukrainian army fighter’s dry ration has clocked 1.4 million views on YouTube and 2.8 million views on the service’s newly launched TikTok channel.

Alongside bringing the BBC’s global news coverage to Ukrainian audiences, BBC News Ukraine continues to be a crucial part of bringing Ukraine to international audiences. And even as the service’s resources are dedicated to the all-consuming war coverage, Viktoriia Zhuhan’s documentary about the Eurovision winners, Kalush Orchestra, provided the BBC’s UK and international audiences with exclusive access to the group, following them from the war-torn outskirts of Kyiv to their triumph in Turin.

As it delivers the BBC’s global news coverage to Ukrainian audiences, BBC News Ukraine continues to be a crucial part of bringing Ukraine to international audiences, with correspondents appearing across the BBC, helping shape the BBC storytelling with expert voices and analysis.

BBC News Ukraine is part of BBC World Service.