BBC World News celebrates 25 years - five things that have changed news in the last 25 years

1) Technology. By 1991, news reporting from the field had already undergone a seismic shift, thanks to the progression from film to video tape in the 1980s. The greater access to satellite technology meant it became easier for broadcasters to reach across the globe, and for our journalists to beam their pictures back to headquarters. The development of the internet – especially with greater bandwidth – changed things even further, enabling footage to be sent via a laptop and a miniature sat dish – meaning journalists could report from the most remote and inaccessible regions on Earth, be it a war zone or the Antarctic.

Nowadays, technology does things we could never have dreamed of back then. A simple mobile phone is a video camera and transmitter in one. Computers and broadband and now 4G mobile technology, mean entire programmes can be edited and broadcast from a hotel room. BBC World News’ technology programme Click has just filmed an entire episode using 360-degree cameras. We’re currently trying out automated voice-over technology, which has the potential to produce voiced and subtitled online packages in languages spoken all over the world. Drones have transformed the type of pictures we’re able to collect, whether they’re images from right at the heart of the action or sweeping aerial shots that demonstrate scale, such as those of the vast refugee camp on the Turkish/Syrian border. Virtual Reality is becoming available to mainstream consumers.

2) Audiences. For news organisations to survive in an increasingly competitive world, they need to give audiences what they want, when and how they want it. In 1991, audiences would tune in to their favourite radio station for the headlines at the top of the hour, or wait to get their daily news fix from the evening newscast. When the BBC launched international news on TV, it was via a 30-minute daily bulletin. Now consumers expect instant coverage, constantly updated. They don’t want to wait and they want it wherever they are – on their TV, particularly during fast-moving breaking stories, but also on the radio in the car and on their phone or tablet when they’re on the go. The majority of our online traffic now comes from mobile devices, so we’ve launched a new project called Newstream which involves creating content which is tailored specifically for mobiles, such as footage which is filmed in portrait rather than landscape format.

3) Citizen journalism. On Boxing Day 2004, a tsunami caused widespread devastation across South East Asia. Facebook was in its infancy, Twitter wasn’t born, and yet the BBC received thousands of unsolicited videos, mobile phone pictures and eyewitness accounts. That day, the line between audiences and traditional journalism became less distinct. Much of the material we received was sent via email and mobile phones to relatives, who sent it on to news organisations. A week after the disaster, BBC News had received 50,000 emails and our messageboard recorded around 400,000. It was shortly afterwards that we launched our User Generated Content Hub – a team of people who source and verify the best third party footage from the vast amounts available.

Back in 2005, email and messageboards were our currency. Now smartphones, private messaging and live-streaming apps and a plethora of social media networks have redefined the challenge of searching, discovering and verifying UGC. But with more and more content, much of it inaccurate, some of it propaganda, flooding our TV screens, inboxes and social media feeds, knowing what to trust is paramount. There are increasing numbers of people and groups intent on distorting images to mislead journalists, so the team are responsible for ensuring that any footage we use adheres to the BBC’s strict editorial standards. They use a range of techniques such as picture recognition and geolocation software to ensure it is accurate for our audiences.

4) Social Media. In 2009, a commercial airliner crash landed in the Hudson river in New York. Twitter users broke the story 15 minutes before the mainstream media. A bystander took a dramatic snap of the downed plane and uploaded it to Twitpic. The response to his image crashed the service.

Since then, a whole host of new social media platforms have become part of everyday life – Instagram, Snapchat, chat apps such as WhatsApp and Viber. More recently, live-streaming apps have taken it to new levels. The likes of Facebook Mentions, NomadCast, MyEye, Meerkat and Periscope allow people to view live footage direct from the scene of a breaking story.

However, what we hear time and again is that people see stories on social media but they don’t believe it until they see it from a trusted news source. Social media is great for speed but not necessarily for accuracy, so there is very much still a role for traditional media brands in providing verified news, whether on TV, radio, online or one of the increasing numbers of social media platforms.

5) Globalisation. Last year, BBC World News conducted some research that showed that two thirds of people feel that news stories from elsewhere in the world are now more relevant to them than they have been in the past. Seven out of 10 people said they were more concerned about world events than ever before, with terrorism, conflict, health and the environment topping the list of issues.

As a global organisation, having reporters on the ground is key to telling the story. The BBC has journalists in more places than any other international news channel, which means we can get expert reporters on the scene quickly. When a big story covering a number of different locations breaks, such as the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, we have journalists across the globe who we deploy to the scene in order to report on the local angle to build up a truly global perspective.