BBC told to boost local and global coverage

BBC News needed to boost both its local and global coverage and improve its digital services if it wanted to remain relevant, the corporation said in an internal assesment.

According to a report titled The Future of News, the BBC should "do more to provide local news that properly serves all parts of the UK''.

The report added it needed to also reverse the trend of closing World Service language operations, and go in for opening new stations in countries like North Korea.

According to BBC News director James Harding, the need for the corporation to keep the public informed in an "exciting, uneven and noisy internet age" was "greater than ever".

He added, the BBC would need to have to think about how to deliver on its mission beyond broadcasting.

He added it had a singular responsibility to provide the best quality global news coverage to people in the UK and audiences who sorely needed it across the world.

He went on to add that local news was suffering due to the decline of regional papers, at a time when devolution was shifting power away from Westminster.

Meanwhile, The Independent reported that the BBC needed to use animated sequences in news reports to reach younger viewers in a rapidly changing digital landscape, the report recommended.

The report said the corporation needed to reinvent the way it presented reports to keep audiences, increasingly turning to personalised news feeds delivered through social media, interested in complex stories.
 
The report further warned that the BBC might need to seek extra funding from overseas audiences to allow it to compete globally with state-sponsored news organisations like Russia Today and digital platforms such as Facebook and Google.

The report, which set out a strategic choice of  ''decline or growth'', said the BBC must make over the next decade. The report gauged the views of academics, journalists and technology experts.
 
It said, ''The BBC is unique, the most trusted, responsible and reliable news source in the world, and our biggest job in the next 10 years is not to screw it up.
 
''It will be important to find new reporters and correspondents who can present stories in ways that are interesting and compelling to younger audiences. Animation can be a useful storytelling tool.''