Franklin Avenue

Here's a little-known part of the BBC that does some amazing work: BBC Monitoring employs over 500 people to listen and watch virtually every newscast in every country on the globe. This gives them a chance to figure out world opinion on certain matters-- such as the war (I learned of the division the other day while watching BBC World News, as the anchor interviewed someone from BBC Monitoring to get an idea of how the disappearance of Iraq's leaders has been covered across the world). And monitors are also able to gauge when certain events may be going down in remote or very secretive countries. Say a government-run station on a small dictator-led island starts playing somber music out of the blue. The BBC will then be able to investigate and figure out if that dictator has died, or if some other tragic event has taken place. According to BBC Monitoring, the division operates "around the clock to monitor more than 3,000 radio, TV, press, Internet and news agency sources, translating from up to 100 languages."