30/06/2012 Newswatch

Welcome to Newswatch. Later in the programme - Jeremy Paxman is known

as a combat if the interviewer but has he gone too far? That is what

we see to use for the credibility... Is this some sort of joke? With

have almost become used to a state of political turmoil in countries

such as Egypt, Libya and Syria since the first spark of revolution

at the end of 2010. The Arab Spring, this series of popular uprisings

has proved a uniquely difficult time for broadcasters to cover.

Nobody saw it coming on quite the scale. The unpredictability has

been one challenge. Events have been moving so quickly in different

locations. Another difficulty has been safety. Have to get close

enough to the story without putting yourself in danger. Correspondence

have taken significant risks to get the report out, such as this report

a's piece from Homs in Syria and the dispatches from Ian panel in

Syria. The risks, logistical and editorial challenges, will clearly

remain for a while, but has the BBC given as full and ballast a picture

as possible of the Arab Spring? On Monday the BBC Trust published a

review of the coverage of the Arab Spring followed by a report written

by a Middle East expert. The overseer of the report joins the

now. What did the trust fund as a result of this research in this

report? I think the overwhelming. The trustees want to make in the

first instance is that the coverage is remarkable. The BBC were

covering of random events happening in a huge geographical area and

volunteers were going in from the BBC into great places of danger and

risking their lives. These are interesting countries because full

uprisings did not happen. Why? Jordan, Morocco. There are other

big countries, like Saudi Arabia, where it is very difficult to get

in. Did it get the coverage it deserves? And then you look at the

countries where there were uprisings like Egypt. What happened

between the spring and the awesome? Some would say that they could have

been done more to explain what was going on. So when a fence -- events

flared up in Devon there again people knew why. Is there a danger

that journalists go off chasing the next begin courses story and

sometimes forget the last one? There is always a risk when there

are dramatic events and there are great pictures. Audiences love

dramatic pictures and they like getting engaged with real events. I

think everybody recognises the need to do the more dull events and that

is one other finding of the report. It could be helpful if the news

division can sound back and take issue strategic look and check that

gaps are not an emerging. Is there a problem of that historically the

BBC has believed its editors of individual programmes should have

the freedom to edit and there is an obvious tension between that

freedom to edit and the executive standing back and sometimes

interfering? I think that is a genuine problem. BBC management

recognise it. You really want editors to have the freedom to

express the individuality of their own programme on behalf of their

own audiences and yet if everybody is doing the amazing protest that

is happening today in the streets of Syria, but not a single one of

them is saying who was making up the opposition in Syria and are

they arming themselves and are they part of the violence, these trends

emerge but did they emerge early enough? That is one of the

questions. That is why you would expect the stand back look by the

management with the editors, of course, and the Middle East Editor

having a look and saying, there is something missing. That should be a

continuing process. In a way, editorial advice from senior

executives? I think it will affect not just the Arab Spring but will

impact on all the big stories. Thank you Crowe. Many of the points

raised in the review have a bin -- echoing in with the comments by

Newswatch viewers. At the height of the coverage of Libya last autumn,

Paul Smith e-mailed with some sarcasm. Viewers have complained of

insufficient reporting over the last 18 months, such as Bahrain.

With me to discuss this is the BBC's deputy director of news,

Steve Mitchell. We have heard from Fran O'Brien that the BBC Trust

completely admires the remarkable coverage of the Arab Spring, says

it was largely impartial and salutes the courage of BBC

journalists in getting it but they say it can be improved and one

complaint is that there was a tendency to go from one big story

to another and forgetting maybe what has happened in some of the

others. Is that fair? We have looked at the report and we

probably think that is a fair criticism in part. Edward Mortimer

was able to review a lot of our output but not all of our output

and we did return to the Egyptian story after the fall of Hosni

Mubarak. There was a period of some weeks where you did not? Their way

up here is when we did not an especially peeress when what was

going on in Egypt did not appear on the main television bulletins.

is not to say that it was not been recorded elsewhere but it is true

that we were very focused on other, major breaking stories including a

war in which we were involved in Libya, a tsunami in Japan. That is

our problem, always, of course, to try to get the balance right

between major breaking events, which news bulletins by definition

have to tell the audience about and returning to stories which reached

a peak earlier but up offers the continuing to unfold. Could you, as

the Trust implies, perhaps have given more context on the main

bulletins, where most people receive the news? Again, the issue

is largely about space rather than intent. Our bulletins are

distinguished by the amount of context and background that we try

to give the audiences but they are of limited duration and the

logistics of that means that sometimes we haven't the space to

do as much context as we would like but personally I think we probably

could have done more to explain some of the more nuanced issues

around all of the events in the Middle East and we will learn from

what Edward Mortimer has found. Just occasionally perhaps too much

enthusiasm from the camp of the rebels, which is understandable

because that is where often the reporters were when covering a

story? I think by definition there was a lot of enthusiasm on the

streets in the Middle East and our reporters on the ground were

reflecting and reporting on that but I do not think any of our

people were carried away by that and I do not think our journalism

as it was edited in London over emphasised that. We will always

making it clear of what the fewest were seeing was, the fence in one

square in Cairo, but there is a huge country and there with a huge

range of opinions -- offence. Looking back says our coverage we

were careful to make that point throughout. Do you accept that

another suggestion from the Trust, that senior executives such as

yourself should have built into the system stand back moments to review,

to see whether the context has been properly explained or what? Yes, I

do accept that. I can accept it on my own behalf. I think that is part

of what I should be doing as I am responsible for a range of

programmes which are not all subject to the constraints of space

that I have described on the main television bulletins. So probably,

someone like me personally should have been saying to some of the

programmes or programmes on radio or online, maybe we should go back

to these stories and maybe we should do a little more context. It

consistent use of the word regime, which few was think can be

pejorative. We have agreed to take that word to one side and think

about it impact on -- its impact on a different audiences. We need to

be quite careful about where we come to with this. Thank you. Time

for one more comment and it relates to interview conducted on Tuesday's

Newsnight by Jeremy Paxman. The guest, in some people's eyes, the

victim, was junior Treasury minister Chloe Smith, there to

defend the deferral of the planned rise in fuel duty. You are here to

defend a change of policy and you cannot even tell me when you were

told what a change of policy was. am not able to give a running

commentary. I am not asking for a running commentary. I am asking for

a statement of facts. There were told sometime today. Was it before

or after lunch? Is it hard for you defend this policy? Which

department is going to come from? That figure will progress, now in

they few departments. I will not do that. Do you not know? Are you

waiting to be told that as well? Te wake up in the morning of thing,

what am I go in to be told today? Do you ever think you are

incompetent? The Chancellor and Tory party spin doctors were

attacked for putting Chloe Smith up front of you put the blame lay

elsewhere according to this viewer, who described it as Jeremy Paxman