Editing BBC World Service (section)

===British soft power===
The World Service claims that its aim is to be "the world's best-known and most-respected voice in international broadcasting, thereby bringing benefit to the UK, the BBC, and to audiences around the world",<ref name="auto"/> while retaining a "balanced British view" of international developments.<ref name="BBC protocol"/> In 2022, the ''[[Financial Times]]'' wrote that the World Service "is considered a pillar of British soft power",<ref name=ft-20221207>{{cite news |url=https://www.ft.com/content/01233bf1-ebe1-4198-9065-8662ed634577 |title=UK government must boost funding to sustain World Service, says BBC chief |author=Arjun Neil Alim |newspaper=Financial Times |url-access=subscription |date=7 December 2022 |access-date=12 January 2023}}</ref> and a [[House of Lords Library]] report noted the widespread recognition of this soft power.<ref name=holl-20221124/> According to the American socialist magazine ''[[Monthly Review]]'' in 2022, former director [[Peter Horrocks]] inferred the World Service's scope to Russian state broadcaster [[RT (TV network)|RT]] as a means of extending international influence and [[soft power]].<ref name=fac-20110517/><ref name="The Broken BBC"/>

In 2014, [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] MP [[John Whittingdale]], chair of the [[Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee]], characterising the BBC's primary mission as fighting an 'Information War' (a role which some{{Example needed|date=August 2022}} media scholars agree to<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Safiri |first1=F |last2=Shahidi |first2=H |title=Great Britain xiii. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) |journal=Encyclopædia Iranica |volume=XI/3 |pages=276–286 |url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/great-britain-xiii |access-date=19 February 2022 |archive-date=21 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211121015816/https://iranicaonline.org/articles/great-britain-xiii |url-status=live }}</ref>), saying: "We are being outgunned massively by the Russians and Chinese and that’s something I’ve raised with the BBC. It is frightening the extent to which we are losing the information war.”<ref name="The Guardian"/> In March 2022, as the [[2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine|Russian invasion of Ukraine]] started, the UK government announced additional emergency funding for the World Service to provide "independent, impartial and accurate news to people in Ukraine and Russia in the face of increased propaganda from the Russian state" and to counter "Putin’s lies and exposing his propaganda and fake news".<ref name=govuk-20220324>{{cite press release |url=https://www.gov.uk/government/news/bbc-gets-emergency-funding-to-fight-russian-disinformation |title=BBC gets emergency funding to fight Russian disinformation |publisher=UK Government |via=gov.uk |date=24 March 2022 |access-date=12 January 2023}}</ref>