Ebola Cases Map (Source: World Health Organization)
(Source: BBC Media Centre via Andy Sennitt)
The BBC World Service and Voice of America (VOA) have entered into a ground-breaking partnership to pool resources and content about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, so as many people as possible receive factual information about the disease.
The broadcasters are sharing TV, radio and digital content related to the outbreak in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Editors will also share Ebola planning and identify other possible areas for collaboration, such as sharing contacts. The collaboration features content in English, French and Hausa with the scope to translate content into a range of local languages.
World Service Director Peter Horrocks said:
“This is the worst Ebola outbreak the world has seen and so we have taken unprecedented action. Reliable facts and information can literally save lives and as the two leading broadcasters in the region we have joined forces to reach as many people as possible.”
VOA Director David Ensor said: “We at the VOA and the BBC are united against a common enemy—Ebola. Our collaboration is about public service at a time when so many lives are at stake.”
The back story to this collaboration is that VOA just doesn’t have the resources to do the job. Also, as everyone knows BBC has sharply higher online traffic than VOA, especially in contrast to the VOA English website, so this was clearly a way for the discredited management at IBB/VOA to get a boost from the BBC’s already established and superior coverage system. One question that should be asked is exactly how much VOA material has been carried by the BBC, rather than the other way around.