With cyberspace crowded with an increasing number of bloggers and citizen journalists, Colin Lawrence is a firm believer that the credentials of the news source are still important.
The newly appointed commercial director at BBC World News is not alone in concerns that the torrent of information unleashed every day on the internet means people may lose sight of the need for old-fashioned journalism, including liberal doses of accuracy and balance.
'Not everyone can be a journalist and to me who is telling the story is important in itself,' Lawrence says during a visit to Hong Kong last month where the 46-year-old was among the media executives attending the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia Convention. According to a survey last year by the US Project for Excellence in Journalism, online news outlets are viewed with more scepticism than their print, broadcast and cable counterparts. Of seven organisations evaluated, none was viewed as highly credible by even a quarter of online users able to rate them.
Of course in Lawrence's view, the BBC with its long history and huge network of correspondents is one outlet that can be trusted. Over the past few years BBC World News has evolved into a truly global brand. The British broadcaster is now making an increasingly aggressive push into CNN-dominated television territory and cyberspace.
But the BBC's increasing reach, both on the internet and television, has its detractors. James Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp in Europe and Asia, recently launched a broadside against the BBC, accusing it of having expansion plans that were 'chilling'.
Lawrence is nonplussed by the criticism, noting that Murdoch was directing his ire against the domestic, publicly funded BBC, whereas BBC World News is privately funded by sponsors and subscribers.
