The BBC World Service is being financially outgunned by Russian and Chinese state-owned news channels, its former director Peter Horrocks has warned. He expressed concern that Britain and the US are losing a global 'information war' with the Kremlin.
Horrocks said ministers should review Britain's overseas spending and consider freeing up extra World Service funding to combat Moscow-backed propaganda. 'Medium to long term there has to be an anxiety about the spending of others compared to what the BBC are putting into it,' he said.
International alarm over the rise of Kremlin-funded news, led by 24-hour channel Russia Today, has intensified following Vladimir Putin's military intervention in Ukraine. David Cameron told MPs he had raised with President Obama his concern about Russian news channels 'pumping out a distorted picture' of events in Ukraine.
Horrocks said the BBC had asked the Foreign Office 'whether there's anything they want to do with development funding for extra programming for Ukraine' but had not yet had a reply. FCO funding for the World Service stopped in April, with the £245m annual budget now coming out of the licence fee.
Despite this shift, Horrocks said 'considering supplementary funding is something that could be on the policy agenda'. He added: 'We are being financially outgunned by Russia and the Chinese but there's no way we're being outgunned on the results.'
John Whittingdale, chair of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, said: 'We are being outgunned massively by the Russians and Chinese. It is frightening the extent to which we are losing the information war.' He said he would seek assurances from BBC News director James Harding about protecting the World Service as a counterweight to Russia Today.
