Home | Impartiality | Accuracy | Fairness | Respect | Independence

	Introduction   Monitoring Iraq: Brian Rotheray   Reporting first-hand: Kate Adie   Getting the facts in Colombia: Catalina Esparza   Checking contributors: Beatrice Murail   Statistics in India: Sanjeev Srivastava   Preventing mistakes in Iran: Jim Muir   Polls in the World Cup: Luis Restrepo   Running news agency reports   Using archive material   Advertising for contributors   Staging events and reconstructions		BBC Monitoring: tracking the world's media - by Brian Rotheray, Managing Editor, BBC Monitoring The world's airwaves are full of thousands of voices clamouring for viewers' and listeners' attention. And the need to know what the world's media are reporting has never been greater. War Take the coverage of war in Iraq. People wanted to know what the Iraqi media were reporting. What were Iraqis being told? This interest extends in ever widening circles. What are the media in the Arabic and Muslim world - from North Africa to Indonesia - saying about Britain and the USA? And what is being said by influential players worldwide - by the Chinese, Russians and French? All of this influences the course of events. So British and international audiences, BBC newsrooms and reporters, government departments and MPs have a keen need to know. This places great responsibility on the BBC's Monitoring Service, whose job it is to provide this information. Impartiality and accuracy Doing this job for the BBC means that the Monitoring Service must above all be impartial and accurate. And that has a number of angles. We have to understand the world's media - television and radio stations, news agencies, the press and - increasingly - websites. We have to know how they function and what they represent. We have to handle impartially the news and views the media carry, giving a range of opinion where we can. This means reporting what different sides in a conflict are saying, helping to give the big picture of a situation. And we have to handle what is said with great accuracy, translating reports into English from a hundred languages, including the subtle nuances and riddles in which politicians can speak. This takes great skill and understanding. And reporting accurately what the world's opinion formers are saying helps all of us understand the world better. Related links: BBC Monitoring

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