To mark 25 years of 成人论坛 World News Hannah Khalil interviewed Chair of Global News Ltd Fran Unsworth about the past, present and future of the 成人论坛's international news service.
Why was the 成人论坛 World News channel set up?
成人论坛 World News – the 成人论坛’s international 24-hour news channel – was set up 25 years ago at a time when other broadcast organisations were starting continuous television news services. The 成人论坛 has always been at the forefront of technological change, and with 成人论坛 World News we maintained our position at the forefront.
In a way the channel is more relevant than ever. In the 25 years since it was set up the world has become much more globalised. It’s impossible now for a media company that wants to be taken seriously – even by its domestic audience - to think that it would not have an international presence.
成人论坛 World News has enormous reach around the world too. 85 million people a week tune into the news channel every week. If you add in the international website it goes up to 105 million around the world. That is a significant number of people consuming the 成人论坛. It brings credit back to the 成人论坛 and it makes us an international brand. I think it brings credit back to Britain as well.
What impact did moving World Service staff to Broadcasting House have?
When 成人论坛 News all came together in this building – Broadcasting House - it made a big difference to us, because largely television was done from Television Centre and the World Service came from Bush House. Now we are all together. It’s made it easier for more services across the 成人论坛 to access expertise of people in the language services for example.
There’s much more sharing of information too - everyone’s in the same meetings, sharing staff, sharing ideas, sharing content. So, quite often material that runs on World News will also appear in another version on the website and World Service radio, and on domestic radio and TV. There’s much more sharing in every sense done as a result of moving into this building. That makes for richer content for our audience.
How has 成人论坛 World News changed over the past 25 years?
World News has evolved but I don’t think it has changed. The fundamental mission - to shine a light on all corners of the world, help the world communicate and understand each other better - is why the 成人论坛 was set up in the first place, echoing the ‘nation shall speak peace unto nation’. So, in that respect the role of 成人论坛 World News doesn’t really change. Obviously what has developed are the techniques, the technologies, and the mechanisms that you use to deliver it. So I’m sure that if you looked at what we were putting out 25 years ago on our international news channel, it would look quite different from what we are doing today. The purpose remains fundamentally the same.
Thinking about those technologies the biggest change has to be the birth of the internet. That changed everything. It changed the way people received the news, the devices they receive it on, it changed what they want to consume as a result of the devices that they are using it on. Television remains powerful - people still come to television in the event of a big story. Television is about the power of pictures, because people need to experience the physical embodiment of something. But television is also about the shared experience of a big story as well. So when something huge happens, people’s instincts are to turn on the television and see what’s happening, follow it and have the 成人论坛’s full range of experts to guide them through it. Television remains a really important mechanism by which people receive news, despite the growth of mobile, tablet, or desktop. I don’t see that going away any time soon.
How has the job of the 成人论坛 World News journalist changed?
It is different now. 25 years ago we were largely platform specific. So, if you were a TV journalist you were a TV journalist; if you were a radio journalist you just did radio; and if you were a writer for the website that was what you did. Now successively we’ve changed all that and the World News journalist has to be able to do all of those things. Because those are the services that the 成人论坛 provides, and it’s not just an efficiency argument, it’s about access, so if you’ve got - as we‘ve got today - Lina Sinjab in Beirut, doing the story there about the humanitarian situation in Syria, she’s there for 成人论坛 Arabic outlets, she’s there for English language outlets, she’s there for the television, the radio, the web. All platforms need and want to make use of her because she’s the only one on the ground there who is able to cover the story. But of course it’s not just Lina it’s her team as well, so it’s her camera operator, her producer they’ll all be part of that process of turning it out for everybody. So all World News journalists have to be more skilled in many ways and there’s a huge amount of pressure for them on a big story.
What’s been the biggest story for World News?
I think the biggest story in the last quarter of a century would probably be 9/11 because it really fundamentally changed the geopolitics of the world. It presented the most enormous challenge to Western values, way of life, democracies which we are of course living with today but in evolved guises, it’s still very much there. But in terms of important changes over the last 25 years - obviously 9/11 was a seismic news story but if you had to say, well what was the most important thing that has happened, maybe you would say the invention of the world wide web, because arguably that has had a greater impact on changing people’s lives.
What does the future hold for 成人论坛 World News?
As for what’s in the future of 成人论坛 World News –I could sit here and try to predict how people were going to consume news and I haven’t got the answers to that. So, I’ll settle for more mobile, cheaper data packages, more video. At the moment, people around the world struggle to download too much – probably that will all change. But these are not really the ‘next big things’, often people have failed to predict those: like SMS messaging – who knew that would take off when it did, or social media.
成人论坛 World News will continue to be very important, because it’s in English. English is the key language of the world – it’s not the biggest spoken, that’s Chinese. But in terms of a language that unites the world, English has an absolutely crucial role to play and always will have. So we absolutely have to be thinking hard about what we do in English in terms of delivering news for the whole of the world. As long as people are still consuming news then will still have a role to play.
Fran Unsworth is Chair of Global News Ltd.
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