17/12/2011 Newswatch

Welcome to the last Newswatch of the year. What a good year it has

been. This week, we will look at some of the big stories of 2011.

What you thought of the coverage and what BBC editors and

journalists told us on Newswatch. This is the man police have

arrested. Christopher Jefferies - a retired school teacher,

Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator and Joanna Yeates's landlord.

is never charged, hasn't serious damage being done to his reputation

by the public, media and reports from programmes like the BBC?

not believe we have said anything on television which has done that.

More now on a breaking story tonight. The shooting dead of US

congresswoman doubt --. We now hear that according to a hospital

spokesperson, she is still light and even surgery. I regret we got

it wrong. There were some stories in the US that they were told it

was true. I do not believe it is any excuse for getting it wrong.

Just explaining how it happened. the early evening, more dead and

wounded in Tahrir Square. If I listen to the radio and the various

TV channels, one has an impression that there was a duplication of

effort. I do not know how many reporters there are. We have been

getting the calculator out. We counted 17 BBC reporters and

presenters. At least 10 appeared on television. Delirious scenes of joy

in eastern Libya where the opposition is in control. In the

capital, information was hard to come by and pictures from anywhere

were scarce. In the eyes of some Newswatch viewers, those that were

used were often a substitute for proper journalism. We are pretty

reliant on what people can shoot themselves for us and are delivered

to us. That presents us with some problems because we need to verify

these pictures and we need to be clear about when they were shot and

what they are of. The 23 feet tsunami reached the shore with

terrifying speed. Boats broke away, splintering as they made matched

six. Whole buildings collapsed into the water. The -- matchsticks.

is grossly irresponsible to send reporters at such a disastrous time.

There will be inevitable shortages of essential things for life and

Europeans will be using precious resources, water, fuel etc, that

must deprive the local already What did you think of the BBC's

coverage in the run-up to the Royal Wedding? To be frank, tiresome and

bothersome. Excessive focus on the minute points of the event like

Kate's dress. It becomes tiresome The United States has conducted an

operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. The leader of Al-Qaeda.

Outside the White House, there were celebrations.

I was astonished by the celebratory nature of much of the coverage.

Will normal, balanced, factual coverage of the Middle East

difficulties had been replaced today by pro American back-slapping.

Mr Henning's defined behaviour would have been a criminal act if

repeated outside Parliament. balance in this case came down to

the public service obligation to report events in Parliament on this

issue even though it involved an element of legal risk.

With such pageantry and display, do you expect the BBC to lavish all of

its camera work on this? News channel presenter said the footage

came in war and unedited. Undeterred, the tunnel stuck with

these pictures for 40 minutes. -- came in raw. It is disgusting and

Rising energy prices, higher VAT and a major cut in government

spending will all contribute to a very weak UK economy this year.

Yes, some people are having difficulties with their finances

and the country does have debt problems. But the news channels

make matters worse as they continued to focus on the doomed.

The group were stained here than her husband. He described her

action as a smooth but firm action and I thought, that is not news. It

is that the frantic drivel. Resignations, arrests have gripped

many. -- sycophantic. According to one woman, we were like a pack of

hounds going after person after person until their life was

destroyed. This is judgement by Quite often, when these things calm

down, one can look back and think, maybe things happened during that

Two police cars were set alight in Tottenham. Altercation between

protesters and riot police. issue is that the word protesters

was used for too long to describe the people that were taking part in

criminal acts. Those people partaking in some of the violent

acts we witnessed in the coming nights, stopped being protesters as

soon as the first brick was thrown It was the day when the ruling of

the courts collided with the determination of the community.

Need afternoon and a dozen or so bailiffs marched to the entrance of

the illegal Dale Farm. -- Mead afternoon. Why does the BBC think

people who knowingly break the law should have such a strong and

Today, new footage emerged of Colonel Gaddafi's final moments.

Here, he is seen led away on foot by rebel fighters who quickly

surround him. This picture of Gaddafi's body, bloodied and beaten,

was on every single page of the website. For me, that is

unacceptable. The image made me feel physically sick. We are not

used to seeing those kind of images. No. We are not. The approach we

tried to take on the television and on the website was give a warning

to viewers, to flag it, that you are about to see something unusual

Disbelief at from motorists as they drove past the pile up.

The mobile phone is actually live action of people dying. At best, it

is poor taste. At worst, the editor is guilty of showing a smart movie

on prime-time television. When the latest GDP figures come

out... He a new study has found the

British public remains confused about the economic crisis in Europe.

And that people do not believe the media in general have helped them

enough to understand it. Whenever we cover the eurozone story, we try

to is to reconnected back to the UK so people feel the connection with

it. But we know they are extremely Arguments were raging again, even

before this week's action. The majority of opinion was summed up

by this - reports on the planned strikes appear one-sided and biased

towards the government. The French President, the British Prime

Minister managing a clenched smile as Britain's relationship with

This week, the BBC's director of Thank you to all the viewers who

gave us your opinions and to BBC staff who appeared on the programme.

We will hear more in 2012 about problems in the eurozone and the

consequences of the so-called Arab Spring uprisings. Next year seeing

presidential elections in Russia and the US, the Queen's Diamond