:00:25. > :00:29.Welcome to the last Newswatch of the year. What a good year it has
:00:29. > :00:33.been. This week, we will look at some of the big stories of 2011.
:00:33. > :00:43.What you thought of the coverage and what BBC editors and
:00:43. > :00:45.
:00:45. > :00:49.journalists told us on Newswatch. This is the man police have
:00:49. > :00:56.arrested. Christopher Jefferies - a retired school teacher,
:00:57. > :01:00.Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator and Joanna Yeates's landlord.
:01:00. > :01:06.is never charged, hasn't serious damage being done to his reputation
:01:06. > :01:10.by the public, media and reports from programmes like the BBC?
:01:10. > :01:15.not believe we have said anything on television which has done that.
:01:15. > :01:23.More now on a breaking story tonight. The shooting dead of US
:01:23. > :01:27.congresswoman doubt --. We now hear that according to a hospital
:01:27. > :01:34.spokesperson, she is still light and even surgery. I regret we got
:01:34. > :01:39.it wrong. There were some stories in the US that they were told it
:01:39. > :01:49.was true. I do not believe it is any excuse for getting it wrong.
:01:49. > :01:51.
:01:51. > :01:57.Just explaining how it happened. the early evening, more dead and
:01:57. > :02:02.wounded in Tahrir Square. If I listen to the radio and the various
:02:02. > :02:06.TV channels, one has an impression that there was a duplication of
:02:06. > :02:11.effort. I do not know how many reporters there are. We have been
:02:11. > :02:17.getting the calculator out. We counted 17 BBC reporters and
:02:17. > :02:22.presenters. At least 10 appeared on television. Delirious scenes of joy
:02:22. > :02:26.in eastern Libya where the opposition is in control. In the
:02:26. > :02:31.capital, information was hard to come by and pictures from anywhere
:02:31. > :02:36.were scarce. In the eyes of some Newswatch viewers, those that were
:02:36. > :02:40.used were often a substitute for proper journalism. We are pretty
:02:40. > :02:44.reliant on what people can shoot themselves for us and are delivered
:02:44. > :02:48.to us. That presents us with some problems because we need to verify
:02:48. > :02:58.these pictures and we need to be clear about when they were shot and
:02:58. > :03:02.
:03:02. > :03:10.what they are of. The 23 feet tsunami reached the shore with
:03:10. > :03:15.terrifying speed. Boats broke away, splintering as they made matched
:03:15. > :03:21.six. Whole buildings collapsed into the water. The -- matchsticks.
:03:21. > :03:26.is grossly irresponsible to send reporters at such a disastrous time.
:03:26. > :03:31.There will be inevitable shortages of essential things for life and
:03:31. > :03:41.Europeans will be using precious resources, water, fuel etc, that
:03:41. > :03:45.
:03:45. > :03:52.must deprive the local already What did you think of the BBC's
:03:52. > :04:00.coverage in the run-up to the Royal Wedding? To be frank, tiresome and
:04:00. > :04:10.bothersome. Excessive focus on the minute points of the event like
:04:10. > :04:16.
:04:16. > :04:20.Kate's dress. It becomes tiresome The United States has conducted an
:04:20. > :04:23.operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. The leader of Al-Qaeda.
:04:23. > :04:29.Outside the White House, there were celebrations.
:04:29. > :04:32.I was astonished by the celebratory nature of much of the coverage.
:04:32. > :04:42.Will normal, balanced, factual coverage of the Middle East
:04:42. > :04:45.
:04:45. > :04:48.difficulties had been replaced today by pro American back-slapping.
:04:48. > :04:53.Mr Henning's defined behaviour would have been a criminal act if
:04:53. > :04:57.repeated outside Parliament. balance in this case came down to
:04:57. > :05:03.the public service obligation to report events in Parliament on this
:05:03. > :05:09.issue even though it involved an element of legal risk.
:05:09. > :05:16.With such pageantry and display, do you expect the BBC to lavish all of
:05:16. > :05:20.its camera work on this? News channel presenter said the footage
:05:20. > :05:26.came in war and unedited. Undeterred, the tunnel stuck with
:05:26. > :05:36.these pictures for 40 minutes. -- came in raw. It is disgusting and
:05:36. > :05:40.
:05:40. > :05:48.Rising energy prices, higher VAT and a major cut in government
:05:48. > :05:51.spending will all contribute to a very weak UK economy this year.
:05:51. > :05:55.Yes, some people are having difficulties with their finances
:05:55. > :06:01.and the country does have debt problems. But the news channels
:06:01. > :06:11.make matters worse as they continued to focus on the doomed.
:06:11. > :06:16.
:06:16. > :06:25.The group were stained here than her husband. He described her
:06:25. > :06:34.action as a smooth but firm action and I thought, that is not news. It
:06:35. > :06:42.is that the frantic drivel. Resignations, arrests have gripped
:06:42. > :06:45.many. -- sycophantic. According to one woman, we were like a pack of
:06:45. > :06:55.hounds going after person after person until their life was
:06:55. > :06:59.
:06:59. > :07:05.destroyed. This is judgement by Quite often, when these things calm
:07:05. > :07:15.down, one can look back and think, maybe things happened during that
:07:15. > :07:19.
:07:19. > :07:26.Two police cars were set alight in Tottenham. Altercation between
:07:26. > :07:31.protesters and riot police. issue is that the word protesters
:07:31. > :07:34.was used for too long to describe the people that were taking part in
:07:34. > :07:38.criminal acts. Those people partaking in some of the violent
:07:38. > :07:48.acts we witnessed in the coming nights, stopped being protesters as
:07:48. > :07:49.
:07:49. > :07:53.soon as the first brick was thrown It was the day when the ruling of
:07:53. > :07:58.the courts collided with the determination of the community.
:07:58. > :08:03.Need afternoon and a dozen or so bailiffs marched to the entrance of
:08:03. > :08:06.the illegal Dale Farm. -- Mead afternoon. Why does the BBC think
:08:06. > :08:16.people who knowingly break the law should have such a strong and
:08:16. > :08:20.
:08:20. > :08:23.Today, new footage emerged of Colonel Gaddafi's final moments.
:08:23. > :08:29.Here, he is seen led away on foot by rebel fighters who quickly
:08:29. > :08:33.surround him. This picture of Gaddafi's body, bloodied and beaten,
:08:33. > :08:37.was on every single page of the website. For me, that is
:08:37. > :08:45.unacceptable. The image made me feel physically sick. We are not
:08:45. > :08:48.used to seeing those kind of images. No. We are not. The approach we
:08:48. > :08:52.tried to take on the television and on the website was give a warning
:08:52. > :09:02.to viewers, to flag it, that you are about to see something unusual
:09:02. > :09:11.
:09:11. > :09:15.Disbelief at from motorists as they drove past the pile up.
:09:15. > :09:21.The mobile phone is actually live action of people dying. At best, it
:09:21. > :09:24.is poor taste. At worst, the editor is guilty of showing a smart movie
:09:24. > :09:27.on prime-time television. When the latest GDP figures come
:09:27. > :09:30.out... He a new study has found the
:09:30. > :09:34.British public remains confused about the economic crisis in Europe.
:09:34. > :09:40.And that people do not believe the media in general have helped them
:09:40. > :09:44.enough to understand it. Whenever we cover the eurozone story, we try
:09:44. > :09:54.to is to reconnected back to the UK so people feel the connection with
:09:54. > :09:56.
:09:56. > :10:03.it. But we know they are extremely Arguments were raging again, even
:10:03. > :10:07.before this week's action. The majority of opinion was summed up
:10:07. > :10:11.by this - reports on the planned strikes appear one-sided and biased
:10:11. > :10:15.towards the government. The French President, the British Prime
:10:15. > :10:25.Minister managing a clenched smile as Britain's relationship with
:10:25. > :11:01.
:11:01. > :11:08.This week, the BBC's director of Thank you to all the viewers who
:11:08. > :11:13.gave us your opinions and to BBC staff who appeared on the programme.
:11:13. > :11:17.We will hear more in 2012 about problems in the eurozone and the
:11:17. > :11:22.consequences of the so-called Arab Spring uprisings. Next year seeing
:11:22. > :11:26.presidential elections in Russia and the US, the Queen's Diamond