The London-based journalists of the BBC Persian Service live in continual jeopardy, much as they would if reporting from a conflict zone or from the bloody scenes of protest in Iran, where thousands have died in recent days.
They fear being kidnapped or attacked on their doorsteps by shadowy agents who stalk their commute to Broadcasting House. Some have been sent threats, promising murder or rape. And many spend each working day wondering if their coverage of events in Iran’s Islamic Republic will lead to parents in Iran being hauled in for interrogation and their family assets seized.
Yet the work that they are doing can shape the destiny of the BBC as the organisation struggles to define its role in a rapidly changing media landscape, while searching for a new leader and negotiating for its future funding model.
BBC Persian is having an extraordinary impact. As mass protests appeared to bring the Iranian regime close to the point of collapse this month, the Persian-language service reached 33.4 million followers across its digital platforms, including 28.2 million in Iran, which is 40 per cent of the adult population. On Instagram, BBC Persian has a following of 23.6 million – bigger than CNN’s English-language account.
For ten days, since the regime ordered an internet blackout on 8 January, Iranians have been denied access to social media. But BBC Persian also operates a satellite television channel seen by 12.5 million, despite a new crackdown on satellite dish ownership by Iran’s authorities.
It is this determined supply of accurate, independent information to some of the most news-deprived populations on earth that makes the BBC World Service unique in the global media industry. It provides a pointer to the future position of the BBC, which is being buffeted by deep-pocketed tech giants from Netflix to OpenAI, but can still be a global destination for reliable news.
In doing so, it can help the UK to stand out as a trusted voice on the international stage, where it is increasingly marginalised in this new era of dominant superpowers.
In Venezuela, international reporters have been turned away at the border when trying to cover the fallout from America’s seizure of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, but the BBC World Service is on the ground in Caracas. Norberto Paredes, a staffer for Spanish-language BBC Mundo and a Venezuelan national, is filing reports for the BBC’s English-language platforms, including Radio 4.
Being able to call on native journalists when covering big international stories is an enviable resource. Last week, journalists from the BBC Afghan service produced a global scoop by uncovering a rift among leaders of the Taliban. The investigation, based on more than 100 interviews with current and former Taliban, was prompted by surfaced audio of an inflammatory speech by supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada at a madrassa last year.
A new perspective on the war in Ukraine emerged last week when the World Service exposed a Russian woman tricking men from the Middle East into joining the Russian army with false online promises of citizenship and future jobs. Syrian and Egyptian victims were traced by the BBC’s Nawal Al-Maghafi and Sheida Kiran. Their film Into The Void was aired on BBC Global Eye, which launched on BBC Two last year to show World Service output to domestic audiences.
Authoritarian regimes fear the World Service. In response to United Nations concerns that BBC staff and their families were being targeted by the Iranian intelligence services, Iran told the UN last year that BBC Persia was culpable of “media terrorism”. In July, parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee reported an “increase in physical threat” to UK-based Iranian journalists from agents of the Iranian regime.
Three alleged Iranian spies face trial this year, charged with targeting UK-based journalists so that “serious violence” could be inflicted upon them. Pouria Zeraati, a presenter with Iran International, a UK-based satellite TV service which has also enraged the regime, was stabbed outside his London home in March 2024.
The BBC can report on Iran like no one else, even though its last Tehran correspondent, John Leyne, was expelled in 2009. Many of the 130-strong BBC Persian team have worked as journalists in Iran and retain extensive local contacts, as well as having lived experience in the country. Star BBC reporters, such as Lyse Doucet and Jeremy Bowen, can draw on this expertise. And because BBC Persian is not on the streets, it has honed advanced analytical skills, including a forensic unit that uses open source intelligence to verify video posted on social media.
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BBC Persia has verified and mapped hundreds of protest videos to create a graphic account of the scale of the uprising across Iran. This rigour is essential. AI has been used to create fake videos of protests, purporting to show female protestors overcoming armed government militia, or to show mass counter-demonstrations in favour of the regime.
Late last year, the controversial internal “Prescott Memo”, which prompted the resignation of director-general Tim Davie over the BBC’s reporting of Donald Trump, alleged “systemic problems” of bias at BBC Arabic in coverage of the conflict in Gaza. BBC Persia, which in November won the Rory Peck Fellowship Award for its journalism, will only succeed if it adheres rigidly to the BBC’s impartiality guidelines.
Despite Iran’s accusations of “media terrorism”, it continues to bid for interviews with government figures, even if these are always refused. Balance is achieved by using quotes and clips from Iran’s state media to reflect the views of the regime.
The prize is considerable. Media freedom has been in steady decline for over ten years, according to Reporters Without Borders. China and Russia are filling the information void with propaganda-infected news, while the White House’s disdain for public media has left the US government-funded broadcaster Voice of America on its knees. By reporting on societies concealed by censorship and isolation, the World Service can be a global beacon of trust. And that would signal a way forward for the BBC, and for Britain.
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