Two of the world's best-known public voices--the British Broadcasting Corp.'s World Service and Russia's Pravda--found their futures at risk last week. That adds up to bad news and good news.

THE SIEGE OF BUSH HOUSE

For most of its 140 million listeners, the BBC World Service is doing just fine, thank you. The 63-year-old network is one of Britain's most influential and respected organizations. Mikhail Gorbachev tuned in from his Crimean dacha to keep track of the putsch in Moscow in 1991. Nelson Mandela listened while imprisoned in South Africa. Serious people around the globe hear its authoritative news reports in 44 languages 24 hours a day. And World Service productions cost 36% less than those in domestic radio.

One would think it does not need fixing, wouldn't one? Not so, according to the corporation's reforming director general, John Birt. He says he intends to end its independent existence in famous old Bush House, split its program production from its broadcasting operations and merge much of its English-language service into the domestic corporation. Funds are being cut, he says, a major reorganization is under way, and the World Service cannot be an exception.

The roars of outrage and dismay were only to be expected. If the World Service is broken up, many admirers fear, it would lose its excellence and expertise in foreign affairs. Motions were offered in Parliament, and leading British newspapers protested in editorials. The Guardian mounted a "Save the World Service" campaign, equipped with an Internet Website. Two weeks ago, 140 dignitaries of the church, academe, the arts and the military signed an appeal to the BBC board for reconsideration of the plan. "People are not influenced by our military strength anymore," said Sir Anthony Parsons, a former ambassador to the U.N. "What does impress them is the BBC."

Birt seemed puzzled by the furor. Not only has the World Service's funding from the government been cut $7.4 million, to $240 million, he says, but the demands of its audience are changing, and the service must change too. When the lease on Bush House expires in 2005, the 2,000 members of the World Service are to move into other BBC offices. "People talk about it like a statue in the garden that needs preserving," Birt complains.

Perhaps not a statue, but certainly a venerable institution. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which dispenses the budget, and the BBC management have agreed to look again at the reorganization plan. A House of Commons committee summoned Birt to explain himself, and last week it criticized the "cavalier attitude" of the BBC chiefs, vowing to keep an eye on them while this is sorted out.

THE LIQUIDATION OF PRAVDA

What's gray on the outside and red through and through? Yes, it's Pravda, for more than seven decades the official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Founded by Vladimir Lenin as an underground paper in 1912, it was the absolute propaganda and policy voice of the Kremlin from 1918 until the U.S.S.R. began its collapse. As the old Soviet joke had it, there was very little truth in Pravda, which means Truth, but every loyal citizen had to pretend to believe it. Its circulation topped 11 million in 1980. During recent hard times for communists, the number fell to about 200,000. Now the paper has been shut down indefinitely.

Not that its Greek owners, Christos Giannikos and his brother Theodoros, made a big issue of its pro-communist line or its support for Communist Party candidate Gennadi Zyuganov in the last presidential election. The problem, they say, is that the paper was losing money and its management had become slipshod since the brothers bought Pravda in 1992. "We became aware," says Christos, 36, "of absences of reporters, drinking on the job, people who had not contributed articles for long periods of time." They noticed that "things kept disappearing from the office," and were upset when they heard that two Order of Lenin medals, copies of which adorned the paper's masthead, had been stolen. When the brothers returned from a business trip two weeks ago, security men kept them from entering the building.

Pravda editor Alexander Ilyin says he is not letting it go at that. He concedes that the paper may not have been a world-beater. "They have to understand that if reporters get miserable pay, if they don't get money for business trips, then you are going to have people who come in and out and may not produce the best quality," he says. Ilyin blames the publishers for increasing subscription rates and devoting their energies to their other publications like Pravda Pyat (Pravda Five), a feature- and picture-filled paper.

This is the fifth time since 1991 that publication of the paper has been suspended for various reasons, and Ilyin insists that "nothing is definite...We will not let it die. Pravda is eternal." Giannikos says, "We are still in negotiations." If the talks flop, there is yet another possibility. Zyuganov said last week that the Communist Party "will be able to support the newspaper in its time of difficulty." That remains to be seen, of course. The party claims 600,000 members, and Pravda's circulation total indicates that every day about two-thirds of them overlook the chance to buy a copy.

--Reported by Helen Gibson/London and Constance Richards/Moscow