BBC News

BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The service maintains 44 foreign news bureaux and has correspondents in almost every country. Since 2004, the Director of BBC News has been Helen Boaden.

The department's annual budget is £350 million; it has 3,500 staff, 2,000 of whom are journalists. Through the BBC English Regions, BBC News has regional centres across England as well as national news centres in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. All regions and nations produce their own local news programmes and other current affairs and sport programmes.

Radio and television operations are broadcast from BBC Television Centre in West London, though are due to move to the newly refurbished Broadcasting House in central London by Spring 2013. Television Centre houses all domestic, global, and online news divisions within one main newsroom. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in Millbank in London.

The BBC is a quasi-autonomous corporation authorised by Royal Charter, making it formally independent of government, and required to report impartially. It has been accused of political bias from across the political spectrum. Internationally, the BBC has been banned from reporting from within some countries which accuse the corporation of working to destabilise their governments.

In 2004, the BBC celebrated 50 years of television news broadcasts. BBC News journalists, cameramen, and programmes have won awards over the years for reporting, particularly from the Royal Television Society. The BBC founded the BBC College of Journalism in 2005 as a part of the BBC Academy, following recommendations made after the Hutton Report.