BBC News is an operational business
division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the
gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the
world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of
radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The
service maintains 50 foreign news bureaux with more than 250 correspondents
around the world.Fran Unsworth has been Director of News and Current Affairs
since January 2018.
The department's annual budget is in
excess of £350 million; it has 3,500 staff, 2,000 of whom are journalists. BBC
News' domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest
live newsroom in Europe, in Broadcasting House in central London. Parliamentary
coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in Millbank in London. Through
the BBC English Regions, the BBC also has regional centres across England, as
well as national news centres in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. All nations
and English regions produce their own local news programmes and other current
affairs and sport programmes.
The BBC is a quasi-autonomous corporation
authorised by Royal Charter, making it operationally independent of the
government, who have no power to appoint or dismiss its director-general, and
required to report impartially. However, as with all major media outlets, it
has been accused of political bias from across the political spectrum, both
within the UK and abroad.
