{"id":106176,"date":"2017-08-21T14:25:41","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T14:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=106176"},"modified":"2017-09-06T10:52:12","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T10:52:12","slug":"bbc-world-service-expands-into-north-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/bbc-world-service-expands-into-north-korea\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC World Service expands into North Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"

The BBC World Service is expanding its number of languages in the biggest such move since the 1940s. The Service is aiming to reach the countries that are most in need of independent news, and is backed by government funding.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A key target of the ambitious expansion is North Korea and the citizens who have limited access to unbiased content.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Guardian<\/a>, Francesca Unsworth, the director of BBC World Service, said: \u2018We are reaching an incredibly febrile, dangerous atmosphere at the moment about that whole story, and isn\u2019t it terrible for the people of North Korea that the only information that they getting about any of this is that woman who goes on North Korean television every night?<\/p>\n

\u2018We talked for many years about whether it was worthwhile doing something for the most in-need country of the world. This is right at the head of the BBC\u2019s mission to bring independent news to people most in need \u2013 and Korea is the country most in need, followed by Ethiopia and Eritrea.\u2019<\/p>\n

The half-hour programme will be broadcast every night, giving the audience a chance to hear it without being caught. Unsworth claims the North Korean embassy has told the BBC not to launch the service, though she claims they\u2019re not planning to be \u2018dissident radio\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018We are there to explain their perspective on this, we are not there to be the voice of opposition. But of course we are not on the side of governments, we are there on the side of people. That is our remit and it always has been.\u2019<\/p>\n

Citizens of North Korea are broadly expected to be able to access foreign broadcasts and half the team will work in Seoul while the other half will be based in London.<\/p>\n

The Korean service will be launched in autumn, following the already-launched digital Pidgin service for West Africa, and the upcoming Amharic, Afaan Oromo and Tigrinya services for Ethiopia and Eritrea.<\/p>\n

Tony Hall, director-general of the BBC, was positive about the Service\u2019s general expansion: \u2018The BBC World Service is one of the UK\u2019s most important cultural exports. In a world of anxieties about \u2018fake news\u2019, where media freedom is being curtailed rather than expanded, the role of an independent, impartial news provider is more important than ever.\u2019<\/p>\n

This is all possible due to a boost in funding of \u00a3289m from the UK Government, which is continuing to find a place for the country in the post-Brexit world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The BBC World Service is expanding its number of languages in the biggest such move since the 1940s. The Service is aiming to reach the countries that are most in need of independent news, and is backed by government funding. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":87267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[350,3729],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106176"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106917,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106176\/revisions\/106917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}