BBC Global News: looking for ways to fully report China
10/09/09 Source: www.chinaview.cn
Director of the BBC’s Global News Richard Sambrook said here Thursday that the BBC would continue to report all sorts of different dimension of China as fully as possible to the rest of the world.
Richard Sambrook, also Co-chairman of the first-ever World Media Summit(WMS), made the remarks in an exclusive interview with Xinhua before the convening of the WMS.
“In this ever more connected and interdependent world, we think it’s very important to reach out to China and to report China as fully as possible back to the rest of the world,” Sambrook said.
“Recently we moved our main hub bureau for Asia to Beijing and we have put more staff and more resources into that bureau, ” he said, adding the BBC was constantly looking for ways to report China more fully.
The BBC is trying to get more opportunities to report China in many different ways as it can, he said, citing the example of a successful China Week special program in 2005 and the Wild China series made as a partnership between the BBC and CTV (a subsidiary of CCTV).
Sambrook said it was important that China’s voice was heard around the world, and also that other voices from around the world heard within China.
“Communication is very important, particularly in the modern world where we face all the issues and problems together,” he said.
Sambrook said he was very much looking forward to the discussion at WMS.
“I am not expecting any easy answers to the problems we face together, but I’m quite sure that we can learn much from sharing experience.”
Sambrook admitted the BBC’s difficulty in coping with the impact of financial crisis, he said the BBC was still exposed to economic changes to property prices and the cost of doing business.
Although BBC is going through a difficult time, there are opportunities as well, particularly with new Technology and opportunities to create content in a new and more flexible way, he said.
He recalled his first time visiting China in 1986 for Queen Elizabeth’s royal visit, when he use a huge and expensive satellite to send the pictures back to Britain.
“Today our reporters can do the same thing with just laptop and mobile phone, that’s much cheaper and easier. technology helps us through these changes if we adapted it and explored it in the right way.” He said.
Sambrook was also keen to participate in the social media sites, like Twitter and Facebook, where he found a lot of creativity, innovation and energy.
“I think there is a profound change the internet is bringing to communication and to all the media, we all need to understand it and being involved to it,” he said.
