Editing BBC World Service (section)

==Assessments==

===British soft power===
The World Service claims that its aim is to be "the world's best-known and most-respected voice in international broadcasting, thereby bringing benefit to the UK, the BBC, and to audiences around the world",<ref name="auto"/> while retaining a "balanced British view" of international developments.<ref name="BBC protocol"/> In 2022, the ''[[Financial Times]]'' wrote that the World Service "is considered a pillar of British soft power",<ref name=ft-20221207>{{cite news |url=https://www.ft.com/content/01233bf1-ebe1-4198-9065-8662ed634577 |title=UK government must boost funding to sustain World Service, says BBC chief |author=Arjun Neil Alim |newspaper=Financial Times |url-access=subscription |date=7 December 2022 |access-date=12 January 2023}}</ref> and a [[House of Lords Library]] report noted the widespread recognition of this soft power.<ref name=holl-20221124/> According to the American socialist magazine ''[[Monthly Review]]'' in 2022, former director [[Peter Horrocks]] inferred the World Service's scope to Russian state broadcaster [[RT (TV network)|RT]] as a means of extending international influence and [[soft power]].<ref name=fac-20110517/><ref name="The Broken BBC"/>

In 2014, [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] MP [[John Whittingdale]], chair of the [[Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee]], characterising the BBC's primary mission as fighting an 'Information War' (a role which some{{Example needed|date=August 2022}} media scholars agree to<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Safiri |first1=F |last2=Shahidi |first2=H |title=Great Britain xiii. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) |journal=Encyclopædia Iranica |volume=XI/3 |pages=276–286 |url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/great-britain-xiii |access-date=19 February 2022 |archive-date=21 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211121015816/https://iranicaonline.org/articles/great-britain-xiii |url-status=live }}</ref>), saying: "We are being outgunned massively by the Russians and Chinese and that’s something I’ve raised with the BBC. It is frightening the extent to which we are losing the information war.”<ref name="The Guardian"/> In March 2022, as the [[2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine|Russian invasion of Ukraine]] started, the UK government announced additional emergency funding for the World Service to provide "independent, impartial and accurate news to people in Ukraine and Russia in the face of increased propaganda from the Russian state" and to counter "Putin’s lies and exposing his propaganda and fake news".<ref name=govuk-20220324>{{cite press release |url=https://www.gov.uk/government/news/bbc-gets-emergency-funding-to-fight-russian-disinformation |title=BBC gets emergency funding to fight Russian disinformation |publisher=UK Government |via=gov.uk |date=24 March 2022 |access-date=12 January 2023}}</ref>

===BBC Persian Service===
In the context of the [[Iranian Revolution]], the BBC World Service's [[BBC Persian|Persian-language service]] has been criticised for its role in promoting the [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi|Shah]]'s regime and undermining local norms in favour of British-selected values, with the [[List of diplomats of the United Kingdom to Iran|British Ambassador in Iran]], [[Peter Ramsbotham]], stating in reaction to a Service-sponsored poetry contest (in celebration of the [[2,500-year celebration of the Persian Empire|2500th anniversary]] of the founding of the [[Achaemenid Empire|Archaemenid empire]]) that the organisation "seems to be damaging its image by acquiring a reputation for employing and supporting 'old brigade' expatriates."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ramsbotham |first1=Peter |title=Telegram from P. Ramsbotham to M. Dodd |date=17 July 1971 |publisher=BBC Written Archives Centre |location=Tehran }}</ref>

Furthermore, it appears{{according to whom|date=March 2023}} that the [[Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office|Foreign & Commonwealth Office]] made a concerted effort to produce favourable coverage of Persia to BBC World Service audiences in order to maintain cordiality with the Shah's regime. For example, in December 1973, a memo from Ramsbotham details a request from the [[Prime Minister of Iran|Iranian Prime Minister]] for the text of a broadcast about Iran by [[Peter Avery]], lecturer in Persian Studies and Fellow at [[King's College, Cambridge]], which he deemed 'excellent' and wanted to show the Shah. This later became the programme ''Iran: Oil and the Shah's Arab Neighbours'' which was aired globally on 1 December 1973, much to the chagrin of the Iranian people, who began airing their frustrations against the British government out on the BBC Persian Service; By 1976, Ramsbotham's successor, [[Sir Anthony Parsons]], concluded that the Persian Service has lost its propaganda value and supported discontinuing the service: "[It] is well known that the vernacular service is financed by the FCO and is therefore firmly considered by the Iranians as an official organ of the government."<ref>{{cite book |title="Central Current Affairs Talks External Broadcasting" |date=1 December 1973 |publisher=Foreign and Commonwealth Office |edition=O26/1374 - 35 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Ramsbotham |first1=Peter |title=Ramsbotham to Managing Director of External Broadcasting |date=27 October 1973 |publisher=BBC Written Archives Centre |location=Tehran }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Parsons |first1=Sir Anthony |title=Telegram from A Parsons to N J Barrington on "BBC Persian Service" |date=4 July 1976 |publisher=Foreign and Commonwealth Office |location=Tehran |edition=9 FCO 8/2762 }}</ref>

In September 2022, the World Service announced the closure of its Persian and Arabic radio services as part of a cost-cutting plan, but the online and TV services would remain.<ref name=ft-20221207/><ref name=guardian-20220929>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/sep/29/hundreds-of-jobs-to-go-as-bbc-announces-world-service-cutbacks |title=Hundreds of jobs to go as BBC announces World Service cutbacks |last=Waterson |first=Jim |newspaper=The Guardian |date=29 September 2022 |access-date=12 January 2023}}</ref>