07/12/2012 Newswatch

This week coverage of the Duchess of Cambridge was a pregnancy. The

programme was recorded before news of the death of bonus involved in

the hoax phone call to the Duchess of Cambridge. -- and less. Hello

and welcome to Newswatch. The Duchess of Cambridge is pregnant

and this news dominated the headlines for several days. Was the

coverage wanted? And the Autumn Statement was a key announcement

for the Chancellor. But did he get a fair hearing's and was BBC

reporting fair and clear about which companies were in the right

and in the wrong on taxation? The statement on Monday from St James's

Palace was simple, the Duchess of Cambridge was expecting a baby.

Next came the deluge of coverage. BBC correspondents and the world

media set up camp outside a London hospital she was taken to.

Good evening and welcome to the BBC news and six. The Duke and Duchess

of Cambridge are expecting their first child. The announcement came

this afternoon after Kate was admitted to hospital with acute

morning sickness. A child will be third in line to

the throne irrespective of whether it is a boy or girl. She paused on

the steps to let photographers take their pictures. I took the

opportunity of asking how she was feeling. She nodded and smiled and

said, much better. While many who felt coverage of the

royal pregnancy was excessive and given undue prominence. One viewer

from London said stop this ridiculous coverage. The nation is

delighted to but the coverage is just over the top. And another it

complained, coverage of the royal pregnancy on BBC Breakfast this

morning was disproportionately long and also discussed in reforming. Do

we need to pay for a live broadcast outside the hospital to be told no

more information than we already knew?

Well Andrew Bowdler and Lesley Newton joins us with the controller

of the BBC news channel, Sam Taylor. What we are concerns about the

coverage? Well I think everyone is happy that their potentially going

to have a child. Everyone commiserate with the Duchess

because of her it will NOS. But that is all I think the BBC needed

to say. There are a lot of other major issues facing this country at

the moment from child poverty, for elderly care. Healthcare, education.

And as we heard on the news this morning, there has been an

earthquake in Japan. So you concern was about proportion of? Yes, I

think the fact that they mentioned this particular condition, I will

not try to pronounce it, I think that was a good thing because a lot

of people then came out of the woodwork and said I have had that.

And thank you for bringing it to people's attention. But I do not

think so much of the big stuff that carried on and the people outside

the hospital and everything else like that, was necessary. Lesley,

of what did you think? I agreed with much of what Andrew has said

but it is all about balance. My first reaction when I heard the

news on the radio was, here we go again. I knew that it was going to

be virtually non-stop. And only one side of the story from then on in.

Yesterday on the radio there was an announcement that Noel Gallagher

was going to be working at the Albert Hall with the teenage Cancer

Trust. And he was asked if he had a message for the royal couple. I

could feel no link there. So you feel there is a danger that

celebrity coverage is being used? Every tenuous link. Everything will

be geared towards this now. And you have concerns about the fact that

the Duchess herself is less than 12 weeks pregnant? As a woman and a

human being it is a difficult time for them. They are a young couple

who are as worried as everyone else. I think that we have to keep things

in proportion but also give them their privacy. So it was too early

and left a bad taste in my mouth. It fell to that creepy. Well the

creepy thing, people tend not to talk about pregnancy until 12 weeks.

There's always a risk and concerned that something might go wrong. Did

you have any concerns about the possibility of intrusion and tone

in this story? You're absolutely right. And at that very time we

were asking St James's Palace for more information because it quickly

became clear that this was before 12 weeks. But the Palace had

decided to put the information out there because of the fact that

medical treatment was taking place. That enabled us to be very clear

about the circumstances. On one level there is no sense of us try

to force information that was not there. And I would just say in that

sense there were two is that living things. I appreciate that stories

divide audiences. And on Wall stories a group of people think we

cover them too much. But not only did we have the medical component

to the story but also an active and moving discussion at the same time

about the accession to the throne. One of the issues is proportion. I

looked at the first couple of boroughs of news channel coverage

and it was a good hour before you got a story about the Starbucks tax

thing. Or about elderly care. And the only foreign story in two hours

of coverage was a short one about Israeli settlements. Is that a fair

balance of coverage given that we knew nothing more than that she was

ill and was going to have a baby? The job of the news channel is to

produce breaking news and develop good news for the audience. And the

treatment for this story was no different to any other. Would you

have done it anything differently about the proportionate and nature

of the coverage and questions that you asked? Probably by about an

hour the following morning we would have taken it off the lead story

about an hour earlier. But then we found its natural place a few hours

later. Well keep your comments coming in.

Contact details coming up later. The other big story of the week was

the autumn statement from the Chancellor. In the true spirit of

George Osborne's called for further posterity's some of you counted the

cost we came to how far the BBC should go in pursuit of aerial

shots of Westminster. One viewer asked was there any need for the

helicopter shots of a man in a grey suit getting into the car? How much

did that cost? Another viewer agreed, why was it necessary to

have deployed a film group in a helicopter? What purpose did it

serve and what cost? Then there was the substance of the statement to

be reported on and a round of the radio and television interviews for

George Osborne. Some of you felt he had a rough ride. A question coming

in, how has the recession affected you personally? That is one that

bugs people. This notion that we're all in it together. Has anything

changed in Europe lifestyle? Has anything gone? Have you felt it in

any tangible way? I took a pay cut and froze my pay on taking this job

to take up from the previous Labour Chancellor. That was in order to

show that politicians will not get away with it. But understand that

people on lower incomes are having a tough time. There is a challenge

with the cost of living for many families. Well one viewer was not

happy with that interview. If ever there was a spiteful question, this

was. Why have a go at him personally when he is just doing

his job? Another folk the balance of coverage was wrong. I get fed up

with the BBC stress in the cuts and austerity programme which has to be

followed to get the country back to a credible position. Another said,

coverage is weighted towards the fact that George Osborne has not

been able to meet his projected targets. The inference being that

he is a miserable failure. And the tax affairs now of Amazon,

Starbucks and Google had been in the news. Starbucks under pressure

after revelations about how they avoided paying corporation tax, has

now announced it will pay more UK tax. Some of you don't reports were

unfair. One viewer asked one will anyone realise the problem is with

the laws passed by MPs and not with these companies. And another

pointed out that many companies have a significant turnover but

make no profit and so do not have to pay corporation tax. Another

said the coverage from Newsnight was superficial and hopes that,

Newsnight has not lost its self confidence to tackle these

challenging issues. It did not contain any new information. And

finally, a classic story. This was running on the BBC news channel, a

New Zealand charity that has taught rescue dogs to drive. One viewer

was not happy. How ridiculous to give airtime to driving docks. Stop

wasting money. That is all they have time for this week. Thank you