British Broadcast Corporation is one of the most trustworthy, credible source of news information around the world.
With a history of 80+ years and network of journalist in almost each and every part of the world ... BBC offers the very best option to keep yourself abreast of the latest in the world - news, business, entertainment, science and other knowledge areas.
It’s most useful service, in my opinion, is their website.
The BBC Website - https://BBC.co.uk (especially the news section - https://BBC.co.uk/news) is one of best structured site I have visited on the internet. It’s navigation is fantastic. You can visit almost any section you can think of - movie reviews, e-commerce, science & technology, health, general news...name it and you got it.
There is never a page you might visit and not be able to go back to its homepage. It is avoided as a result of the excellent design of the website.
Kudos to the BBC website navigation designers!
The best part about BBC Website is its amazing archival of articles. If today you read an article on certain story like ’’India Pakistan relations’’...you shall get a collection of news links relating to the same subject dating back to the independence era of India and Pakistan. You have to take a moment and understand what I just said. It’s truly a feat in itself - to archive material and help you track down the current news story to its very root. Wonderful, isn’t it?
It’s History: BBC started out in 1922 and has since never looked back. The first to provide satellite news service and first in many things.
Visit: https://news.bbc.co.uk/aboutbbcnews/spl/hi/history/html/default.stm, to get a glimpse of British Broadcasting Service history.
News Sections of BBC:
When you enter their news section (https://BBC.co.uk/news) - you shall get a glimpse of all important events that are taking place in the world. Mostly, the headlines emanate from events in UK or USA or Iraq ’’now-a-days.’’ The news section has links to news from various parts of the world - South Asia, Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe, North America. That way you can surf a more concentrated collection of news.
The business section of BBC is also good but not that detailed. It is OK in covering the most important happenings in Business mainly from Europe.
However, it is a no-show in terms of Asian Business stories. You’re better off surfing EconomicTimes.com or BlOnNet.com (Hindu Business Newspaper) for Indian related business news.
Other sections of BBC news website include e-commerce, science & technology, health, sports, etc. Each of the section has generalized news from around the world.
The conclusion is that most of the above sections of news concentrate on happenings in Europe or US. So reading BBC regularly might end up making you a scholar of European or US affairs but will not do you much good on information about rest of the world ;)
When I started out watching British Broadcasting Service in my 10th standard...it was just at a curiosity level to check news of a foreign country.
But, soon it became my daily bread and butter for getting the latest information on politics, business or technology.
As a Website:
To the website lovers, BBC is certainly a dream come true. Its archival, navigation, knowledge database, ease-of-use all contribute to a great experience surfing the site.
The site not only offers text but also audio and visual clips. The latter is present extensively and not just as an ’’add-on’’ factor. I think in the near future - with the spread of broadband - they may converge their broadcasting services and offer it all over internet. That may not replace the existing delivery models of BBC, as accessibility to broadcasting content ranges quite widely from internet to television to radio to print.
The newest in technology, that BBC has to offer, is the RSS News feeds. This allows you to aggregate News Content at one place - a newsreader software for example. The newsreader software will link the RSS News feeds of BBC and get you the latest news from the BBC News website server. The News feed links range on various topics - politics, business and other topics mentioned above.
Visit https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/rss/3223484.stm for more information.
Ready to give yourself a dip in general knowledge, a nirvana in navigation and search for news material? Visit BBC!
Cheers!