BBC World Service journalists have said that its plans to move its Vietnamese service from London to Thailand pose a danger to press freedom. They further said the Vietnamese state had a history of abducting journalists from Thailand.
The staff was particularly critical of BBC bosses failing to comprehend that just because both countries were in south-east Asia, it did not mean Vietnamese people were naturally at home in Thailand. “Being a critic of the Vietnamese government, even when you’re in Thailand, is not safe,” a World Service employee was quoted as saying by Guardian.
Notably, journalists cannot operate freely in Vietnam, which is a one-party state controlled by the country’s communist party. As a result, most of the BBC’s Vietnamese-language staff operate out of London.
The move is part of a cost-cutting programme under which BBC is moving nearly 400 staff from BBC World Service to digital platforms. The organisation said its international services needed to make savings of £28.5 million ($31 million) as part of wider reductions of £500 million, which unions blamed on the UK government.
The corporation said audience is moving towards online news now. So a move to “digital-first” makes sense, especially when seen in conjunction with the freeze on BBC funding and increased operating costs.
“Today’s proposals entail a net total of around 382 post closures,” the public service broadcaster said in an online statement.
Eleven language services, Azerbaijani, Brasil, Marathi, Mundo, Punjabi, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Thai, Turkish, and Vietnamese, are already digital only. The restructuring plans will lead to them being joined by seven more: Chinese, Gujarati, Igbo, Indonesian, Pidgin, Urdu and Yoruba.
Radio services in Arabic, Persian, Kyrgyz, Hindi, Bengali, Chinese, Indonesian, Tamil and Urdu will stop, if the proposals are approved by staff and unions.
The broadcaster insisted that no language services will close, although some production will move out of London and schedules would change. The Thai service will move to Bangkok, the Korean service to Seoul and the Bangla service to Dhaka. The “Focus on Africa” television bulletin will be broadcast from Nairobi, it added.
BBC World Service director Liliane Landor said there was a “compelling case” for expanding digital services, as audiences had more than doubled since 2018.
“The way audiences are accessing news and content is changing and the challenge of reaching and engaging people around the world with quality, trusted journalism is growing,” she added.
Earlier in July, the broadcaster had talked of plans to merge BBC World News television and its domestic UK equivalent into a single channel to launch in April next year. BBC World Service is one of UK’s most recognisable global brands and currently operates in 41 languages around the world. Some 364 million people tune in every week.
(With inputs from agencies)
