Word: bbc
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...dark stony path in one of the most desolate places on earth. Suddenly a message is passed down the column, and everyone gathers in one spot. A Soviet patrol up ahead? A suspected land mine? No. It is 8:45 p.m. and time for the BBC's nightly short-wave news, Farsi edition. Like everyone else, the Afghan soldiers want to know what is happening...
...pick up as many as 50 English-language broadcasts; more expensive radios can tune in the entire world. In the past ten years something like 18 million short-wave sets have been sold in the U.S. alone. One Manhattan writer, who owns an inexpensive Sony ($115), has made the BBC's morning news an essential part of his breakfast. "My reception is so good," he brags, "that when Big Ben chimes, it sends shock waves through my coffee...
Even in an era of news saturation, there is a certain excitement in hearing faraway voices. BBC reports are valued for their objectivity, but many Americans are also fascinated by the propaganda programs that Radio Moscow directs to the U.S. In the past few weeks Soviet announcers have been warning of the darkening "world situation" and denouncing "influential Western politicians who have decided to spur on the arms race...
...areas where local news is either nonexistent or unreliable, the BBC, the Voice of America and Deutsche Welle, the West German government's network, are top sources of information. In the So viet Union and Eastern Europe even government officials listen to find out what happening in their countries. The Kremlin was so annoyed by short-wave reporting of the Polish crisis that last August, for the first time in seven years, it began wide-scale jamming, filling the air with static to block out those irritating signals from the West...
...broadcast television specials on Lennon's life. BBC-Radio One, like dozens of radio stations in the U.S., played Beatle records almost exclusively for days after the murder. Boston's classical music station WBGH-FM aired a symphonic medley of Lennon's music. ABC-TV closed its news broadcast on Christmas Eve with Lennon's recording Happy Xmas (War Is Over), showing a montage of Lennon's life and Pope John Paul II bestowing a blessing as Lennon sang "And so this is Christmas. I hope you have...