How Outside Source connects with audiences

By bringing online techniques to broadcast journalism, Outside Source involves BBC World News and BBC World Service audiences in the programme’s content and production. This video follows presenter Ros Atkins and the Outside Source production team for a day, following their editorial decisions and techniques.

Outside Source, broadcast daily on the BBC World Service radio and BBC World News television, provides a broad agenda of ‘real-time’ news. Its style reflects how many of us get our news these days: by reading a headline or short piece of text online.

The programme describes the world as its newsroom. Followers of @BBCOS can contribute to the news agenda, ask questions and find extra material. The style is quick, the story count high, and global input means original stories from a variety of sources get on air even in places where the BBC does not have a correspondent. 

The editorial focus is on audience involvement and transparency, so correspondents talk about how they go about their work - and the team sometimes explain their editorial decisions.