10/02/2012 Newswatch

hour, now it is time for Newswatch. Welcome to Putin, Russia And The

West. Later in the programme, has BBC Two's series about Russia and

the West been too favourable to Vladimir Putin? If you're not

interested in football, this may not have been the best week to

watch the news. Wednesday saw the acquittal of Harry Redknapp on

charges of tax evasion. This led to the news channel abandoning its

coverage of Prime Minister's Questions, much to the annoyance of

Worse was to follow in the eyes of many viewers with the resignation

that evening of England football There was more sporting controversy

after Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, was told by the BBC

that he was not welcome to appear on the panel discussing Saturday's

rugby international between Scotland and England. Given the

nature, it said, of political debate around Scotland's future and

the proximity of local government elections, it would be

inappropriate to give undue prominence to any single political

leader. Mr Salmond insisted he just wanted to talk about the rugby and

later compared the man who made the decision, the BBC's chief political

adviser, with a Nazi official. One Meanwhile, another apparent BBC tic

that hit the news with reports that BBC journalists have been told a

meeting not to describe the cleric Well, in a statement, the BBC said,

it is not uncommon for us to discuss how we cover stories

impartially, and we think very carefully about the language we use.

The notes are a reflection of a live editorial discussion about how

to report a story. There will be plenty of attention

in Russia over the next month or so, in the build-up to the presidential

election. The man everyone assumes will win the election, Vladimir

Putin, has been the subject of a documentary series shown on BBC Two

over the past four weeks from the award-winning makers of the Death

of Yugoslavia and other acclaimed series. Putin, Russia And The West

has garnered good reviews, too, but What I was very upset by was that

the film only concentrated on showing on the Russian side, people

from the Kremlin and people from their propaganda unit. There were

no ordinary people, no journalists, no critics of the regime. Basically,

the film was made within the framework of Russian official

propaganda. They a few days after they wandered through the Kremlin,

Russian soldiers in Chechnya carried out a routine raid on a

village. Although Russia's involvement in

Chechnya does feature, some observers feel it is not addressed

sufficiently. Eight years later, this young man's remains were dug

up at a Russian base. They had been shot twice in their head. For more

than a decade, Russia has been bombing and shelling its own

civilians in Chechnya. Western leaders have tried as hard as they

could to ignore this war, and unfortunately the film does the

same. It glosses over the worst atrocities committed by the Russian

army. Once you from the series was the admission by Jonathan Powell

that the UK had used surveillance equipment hidden in a fake rock in

a Moscow street to spy on Russia. It was embarrassing, they had us

bang to rights. Clearly they had known about it for some time and

had been saving it for a political purpose. The claim was first made

on a programme on Russian television which link the rock with

allegations that British security services were making covert

payments to human rights groups in Russia. Baldly ruction -- all the

Russian channels were saying, Britain has admitted they were

spying, and it basically proved that everything that was set in the

propaganda film was right. That is how the FSB to it. It provoked a

new wave of attacks on human rights activists. He spent many years in

the KGB... The consultants are the series was former BBC Moscow

correspondent and author Angus Roxburgh. -- the consultant on the

series. Another recent job of his has caused concern. Angus Roxburgh

was employed by an American PR firm which received at one stage from

the Kremlin about $1 million per month for the same purpose, to

improve the image are pressure in the West. Now, I think that taking

on board a man who had been taking money from the Kremlin basically

colours the narrative of the film. So did Putin, Russia And The West

paint too favourable a picture of Russia's past and probable future

President? And joined now by the programme makers, series producer

Norma Percy and series director Paul Mitchell. You clearly referred

to Chechnya in this series, but critics say not enough, not enough

impact. I just do not think that is true. There Park, in the first

programme alone, three distinct sequences which deal with Chechnya.

-- there are. The old expression, one million deaths is a statistic,

one death is a tragedy. And I believe, and I think on the

evidence of how people have reacted to the film, that the fact that we

show one person being trapped away to his death by Russian soldiers

after what we call a routine raid, making the point that this sort of

thing happened all the time, I think it has enormous impact.

spy rock, you got a bit of a scoop, it really existed, at least

according to the former British chief-of-staff. But Russian

television initially linked it with Western payments to human rights

groups, and they have used it apparently, Russian television has

used this as almost propaganda, and you did not apparently set the rot

into the context. I think it is surprising to say that we did not

put it in context. Jonathan Powell's point was that the

Russians knew about the spy rock for a long time and was saving it

up for a political purpose. Putin wanted to bring in a tough law

against NGOs, and he tried to make the discovery of the spy rock prove

that the British were clandestinely... Now they are

actually using that film, does that concern you? Sorry, but the film

went on to say that it had nothing to do with NGOs. The interview with

Jonathan Powell was recorded something like one year ago. It was

recorded at a time when politics in Russia had essentially gone dormant.

The NGOs barely played any real role. Unfortunately, they had been

cut out. In a last few months, suddenly Russia has got incredibly

interesting, the NGOs have become interesting, and the people who

have been saying, you should not have included that, I do not

understand what they are asking for. Should we have censored our

material? We knew this fact, an interesting fact, should we have

not broadcast it? We cannot control what Putin does. Isn't it

unfortunate that you were being advised by someone who has been

involved a PR exercise for a number of years to improve the reputation

of the Kremlin? Angus was a Sunday Times correspondent who was

expelled out of Russia during Soviet times in one of the spy

scandals. He was a BBC correspondent. He did his job for

an American PR company, and like a lot of people who worked for the

Kremlin, he got disillusioned and let, and that is when we picked him

up to work on a series. Did he have any editorial control on your film?

The way we did the series, the series consultant, he helps with

research, helps with the farming, but when we go to edit the

programmes, he goes off and write the book and we make the programmes.

All the time we were making the programmes, he was away writing the

book. No links to the editing. was not physically possible. But we

do this for the time. I mean, you cannot get access to top government

officials by turning up and saying, look at me, I am making a good and

objective programme. You have to find somebody who understands what

you do and distrusted by the Kremlin's. In the programmes, are

they biased? Are they saying that Vladimir Putin was some sort of

hero? That we were all wrong about him? They do not say that. Critics

say that there is not enough representation of the opposition to

Putin. What we do is try to get right inside to show the view of

what it is like pins and the room, in the really big political

decisions. -- what it is like inside the room. We do not

interview pundits, we cannot interview journalists. We only

interview people who were inside the room taking the decision. Those

people tend to the presidents, prime ministers, their top aides.

You clearly got extraordinary access, particularly to senior

people in the Kremlin. To what extent did you have to make

compromises to get that? compromises at all. We used the

same method we have been using with governments for 30 years. What we

do is we say we are going to produce a truly multi- sided

account. We ask you what happened, we ask the Americans what happened,

and we put it together. What we do is try to present the evidence and

let the viewer make up their own mind. Thank you very much indeed.

And thank you for your comments this week. If you want to share