17/02/2012 Newswatch

On BBC News, it is time for news Welcome to the programme. Later, do

BBC journalists need to rethink their use of Twitter? First, much

of last Sunday's television news was dominated by this.

Tributes have been paid to the singer, Whitney Houston, who died

in Los Angeles. There followed a familiar complaint

Oh, yes, football. Those of you who objected on last week's programme

to that particular sport featuring so strongly in the news had little

respite this week. If quite an afternoon here. Lyris so warriors

and Patrice Evra face to face once more. Would they shake hands?

taken three-and-a-half months but Carlos Tevez has finally returned.

A sporting institution now in administration. For Rangers

Football Club, this moment was a long time coming but it was still

painful. You may remember that last year we

featured an edition of Panorama which used secret filming to reduce

-- show patients being physically and verbally abused. Some viewers

at the time were concerned the journalist involved should have

intervened earlier rather than recording the abuse taking place.

The charge was rejected on this programme by Panorama's editor.

Well, it is worth mentioning that last week, three staff from the

place pleaded guilty to the ill- treatment of residence. There will

be sentenced later. Credit is due to the Panorama team

for their role in bringing those three to justice. According to Mary,

The trust told us that while they continually monitor services as

well as the rolling programme of reviews, they are strategic body

for the BBC and it is not their role to pick up on issues such as

this on an Hardtalk basis. A spokesperson added that there is a

complex process which viewers can use of which the trust is a part.

Won a long-running complaint made to the BBC concerns an internal

report written in 2004, assessing its coverage of the Middle East. As

the City called Stephen should have fought the report -- thought the

report should be made public, submitting a Freedom of Information

request which was refused by the BBC. This week, the Supreme Court

agreed there was no requirement to The social media website Twitter

has won over 100 million active users worldwide and counting.

Increasingly, those 140 characters are being employed not just for

teenage gossip but by a major media organisations for breaking news.

The BBC has saved -- has embraced this technology enthusiastically

but last week felt the issue to issue new guidance to its

journalists on their use of Twitter. Premier League players took to

The first inkling of the death of a summer Bin Laden was conveyed on to

the social networking site as was the announcement of William and

Kate's engagement. And of course, it along with Facebook played a

major role in that the so-called Arab Spring. Up until now, when

journalists such as Robert Karlsson have something to reveal, there

Twitter followers have sometimes been the the first to know. Is this

a sign that BBC News has been going overboard in the use of this new

outlet? Those who thinks they might point to a survey that BBC

journalists have posted 100,000 tweets in the last three months of

last year. Some of you feel Not everybody has Twitter, internet

and whatever. We have straightforward telephone and that

is it. I know we are getting smaller and smaller, but I think

there is a proportion of us still around. Be different objection is

There is also the fear that the potential Twitter encourages a

tendency to focus exclusively on breaking news, to the detriment of

So does the BBC's use of Twitter require more radical rethinking?

Should it be thought of as a platform for its journalism or as a

competitor? Chris Sampson is social media editor for BBC News and joins

me now. What is changing as a result of for new diktat? I would

say it is not a new diktat. In fact it is a clarification of our

existing guidance about the way our journalists should handle a line of

breaking news when they get it. What we were trying to do with that

was explain we wanted for breaking used to be delivered him to our

newsroom systems if possible at the same time as people are sending it

out via their own to accounts. that practical? It is. We have a

piece of technology which allows us to offer that service to our

journalists say they can do that. We do say when it is not possible

for whatever reason, that the news room should come first. 100,000

tweets in three months. I'm slightly surprised be assiduous

have that much time. Have they gone overboard? It is not all wonderful

breaking his. My understanding of that survey is in fact it included

some of our big branded accounts, with over 4 million followers. At

that time, they were treating a lot of headlines generated

automatically, News website sweat and a large proportion of those in

year 100,000 tweets will have been from those accounts, rather than

individuals. In any case, the role of Twitter and social media in

general is so important now and an important part of our Toolkit, but

I don't have a big problem with our journalists engaging heavily in

using the system. You are on Twitter, I wanted to, but the

majority of licence payers are not. You heard a few their from someone

who is not on Twitter and he feels that maybe the BBC should be

getting on with its more orthodox journalism on radio and television.

One of the main things to say on that issue is that a lot of the

activity that our journalists take part in on Twitter is although

feeding into our mainstream right for to -- is also feeding into our

mainstream I'd put. Our journalists to go to court cases or the Leveson

Inquiry for example, find that at the end of the day's reporting from

inside the courtroom, the tweets they've sent out are a useful

framework for them for their Scripts and their 6:00pm bulletin

on Radio 4, the 10 o'clock News. It feeds back into the reporting they

are doing on our mainstream output. At the end of the day, is Twitter

an outlet for the BBC or a commercial competitor? We think

Twitter and social media in general has three main uses for us. It's a

platform for our content and we can reach audiences who might not be

reached by BBC News any other way. News-gathering is also an offence

shall part of why we use Twitter. - - an essential part. The third key

role for us is around talking to the audience, engaging with our

audience. We have direct conversations with our audience

about what they think about our journalism.

It before we go, some of you have noticed that the after new

presenters on the news channel, John's Opel and Emily Maitlis, have

been developing a rather jerky on- screen relationship. I thought you

are being cynical? The? Never! Sceptical, big difference. Plessey.

Thank you very much. I love it when you ask a big theoretical question,