Coup for BBC news gathering

Siddhartha, in the novel of that name by Hermann Hesse, says that when you are working towards a goal, you often miss things that are right under your nose. I was reminded of this recently when I heard about the latest triumph for the BBC's news gathering team.

BBC News 24 managed to broadcast actuality from an Al-Qaeda statement a little over 10 minutes after it went out on Al-Jazeera and some 20 minutes before any of the agencies got hold of it. The coup followed the installation of a new digital system linking BBC Monitoring directly with TV Centre in London.

Direct access to Monitoring's main server means that news centre journalists now can view any one of dozens of TV stations worldwide picked up by state-of-the-art satellite dishes. A ‘rewind’ facility even allows staff to retrieve images after the initial broadcast.

But it is not just a question of instant access. A team of expert linguists is on hand at Monitoring to provide translations within minutes, along with analysis and contextual information.

What about copyright, I hear you ask? Picture desk staff at TV Centre will give immediate advice on any restrictions applying to channels accessed at Monitoring.

The launch of the new system coincided with a visit by Richard Sambrook, BBC Director of Global News and EBU Vice-President, to Monitoring's offices at Caversham, near Reading.

Contacts in Caversham described the visit as a huge morale booster. Monitors sometimes feel neglected and forgotten - Caversham is around 50 kilometres west of London - but were impressed that Richard Sambrook found time to meet them and answer questions about the future.

I was privileged to spend a short stint at Caversham some years ago and am delighted that the BBC is making the most of Monitoring's expertise and resources. It gives the BBC a huge competitive advantage over the likes of CNN.

It is not possible under the terms of our current agreement, but perhaps in the future some of the audio being piped to BBC News could find its way into the EBU's Euroradio News system.