:00:18. > :00:23.leader divisive in death as well as life, but did Baroness Thatcher
:00:23. > :00:29.really deserve comments like this, airing just hours after her death?
:00:29. > :00:38.Margaret thatcher Streit -- destroyed my hometown, I am glad she
:00:39. > :00:43.is death. We will discuss BBC coverage this week. There can be few
:00:43. > :00:46.people alive during her premiership who don't have a firm view about the
:00:46. > :00:51.then Margaret Thatcher and this week we have been treated to the full
:00:51. > :01:01.gamut of those views. Here are just a few of them. It has just been
:01:01. > :01:05.
:01:05. > :01:10.announced that Baroness Thatcher has died this morning. Today is a truly
:01:10. > :01:16.sad day for our country. We have lost a great prime minister, a great
:01:16. > :01:23.leader, a Great Britain. The light of her legacy will shine down the
:01:23. > :01:27.generations. Very sad. A strong lady. But this was a politician
:01:27. > :01:33.whose death inspired some in parts of London and Glasgow to take to the
:01:33. > :01:39.streets to celebrate. That woman made my youth misery. She is to
:01:39. > :01:42.blame for the ills in society. Margaret Thatcher did great hurt the
:01:42. > :01:50.people in Britain, to working class communities across Britain. Also to
:01:50. > :01:56.people here in Ireland. A lot of people hated the woman and what she
:01:56. > :02:00.stood for, hated what she does to us. Hundreds of you contacted the
:02:00. > :02:04.BBC with a range of reactions to the coverage. I will get the perspective
:02:04. > :02:09.of the head of programmes for BBC News, Ceri Thomas. Before that, we
:02:09. > :02:12.will hear from two of the viewers who got in touch with us this week,
:02:12. > :02:17.Louise Robertson in our Glasgow studio and Lesley Collinson, who
:02:17. > :02:25.joins us from Tunbridge Wells. What was your concern? I was concerned
:02:25. > :02:30.that the reporting of Margaret Thatcher's death was heavily biased
:02:30. > :02:35.against Margaret Thatcher and in extremely poor taste, because she is
:02:35. > :02:42.a mother, grandmother, she has friends, she has family. Who would
:02:42. > :02:44.like to hear some of the things that were being reported and some of the
:02:44. > :02:49.comments? What were the comments that really got to you, that crossed
:02:49. > :02:54.the line? People saying how glad they were that she was dead, dancing
:02:54. > :03:00.with slogans written on their T-shirts. If I was in the grieving
:03:00. > :03:07.process and that was my family, I would -- it would be awfully hard to
:03:07. > :03:11.cope with. I thought perhaps if nothing nice could be said, nothing
:03:11. > :03:15.should be set at all. That was on the six o'clock News on the day of
:03:15. > :03:20.her death being announced. People would say she is a divisive figure
:03:21. > :03:28.and why should the BBC sensor that? Absolutely, but although we live in
:03:28. > :03:33.a wonderful democracy you have to have respect for peoples feelings
:03:33. > :03:38.and to come on with such blatant disrespect when somebody has just
:03:38. > :03:42.passed away is absolutely unnecessary. In six months time,
:03:42. > :03:49.maybe, let's open the debate then, but the day after a person has died
:03:49. > :03:54.is an acceptable, in my view. Robertson, you have heard my Leslie
:03:54. > :04:00.was dismayed. Your reasons are different? My reasons are different.
:04:00. > :04:03.When I heard the news about Margaret Thatcher and put on BBC News 24,
:04:03. > :04:10.listening to that at the same time as we were catching up about social
:04:10. > :04:14.media about people responding to it, my first thought was you would
:04:14. > :04:18.not think you were listening to the same story because on the first day
:04:18. > :04:22.it was reported by the BBC News, the reporters were trying to outdo each
:04:22. > :04:27.other with a pro-Thatcher agenda, talking about the great leader and
:04:27. > :04:37.how she had made this great country of ours. I thought the reporters
:04:37. > :04:42.
:04:42. > :04:43.were stiff -- sycophantic in the extreme. We pay our licence fee and
:04:44. > :04:45.we should be entitled to hear any event reported in an impartial way
:04:45. > :04:50.and a way that reflects the experience we have had living
:04:50. > :04:53.through the Thatcher years. mentioned social media, there is
:04:53. > :04:58.concern about the national conversation being vitriolic and
:04:58. > :05:03.unrestrained. There is the dip issue about different regions and Scotland
:05:03. > :05:09.being different to the view in London, say? It is not just
:05:09. > :05:13.Scotland, people in Liverpool, Wales, Manchester, all over the
:05:13. > :05:18.country, there would be people feeling the way the BBC reported it,
:05:18. > :05:21.especially on the first day, they would not recognise the reality of
:05:21. > :05:28.the picture you were creating Thatcher. Thank you both very much
:05:28. > :05:34.for coming on Newswatch. Lets put those points to Ceri Thomas. You
:05:34. > :05:37.were criticised for being too sycophantic or two was disrespectful
:05:37. > :05:41.but there is a concern about whether the BBC got the tone right,
:05:41. > :05:51.especially the voices in the first few hours, the six o'clock News on
:05:51. > :05:52.
:05:52. > :05:55.the day of her death? We would say that we have a duty to be respectful
:05:55. > :05:58.to Mrs Thatcher, as we would beat anybody who had died so recently in
:05:58. > :06:01.that way, but at this it -- at the same time we have to examine the
:06:01. > :06:07.legacy and look at the shades of opinion that sprang up in the
:06:07. > :06:15.aftermath of her death coming through. I think we did that. We
:06:15. > :06:18.were respectful. The interesting thing is it is an art, not a
:06:18. > :06:21.science. You can plan and prepare and thinking these things through in
:06:21. > :06:26.advance but when the moment comes and you are making judgements in
:06:26. > :06:32.real-time, it is very unlikely we are going to get everything
:06:32. > :06:36.absolutely right. But you can establish some parameters. This is
:06:36. > :06:43.an event that was anticipated and planned for. Waiting until the day
:06:43. > :06:48.after might make all the difference? When people say we are glad she died
:06:48. > :06:50.and it is within six hours of her death. I can't see that you could
:06:50. > :06:55.have laid down parameters that would have excluded that comment in
:06:55. > :07:01.advance. It is not saying that it should have been there on the day,
:07:01. > :07:06.in retrospect maybe it was too harsh at that point. That opinion existed
:07:06. > :07:11.and it is right that we reflected the fact it existed. Was that a bit
:07:11. > :07:18.soon, a bit jarring, possibly, yes, but it is difficult to say we must
:07:18. > :07:21.not do that. Another issue, how far the coverage was reflecting the
:07:21. > :07:26.national conversation. Partly what Louise was saying about social
:07:26. > :07:32.media, which was very critical overall and very anti-Lady Thatcher.
:07:32. > :07:37.How did the BBC deal with that? You talk about the importance of social
:07:37. > :07:40.media coverage. We don't say it drives our coverage. Our job is to
:07:41. > :07:45.reflect shades of opinion within the country. Social media will be
:07:45. > :07:50.informed by some of that opinion but it is not an accurate reflection of
:07:50. > :07:55.the whole of society's opinion. focused on coverage that people felt
:07:55. > :08:00.was either to carve -- to positive or two negative but a lot of
:08:00. > :08:04.complaints have been about excessive coverage, that we should move on. A
:08:04. > :08:09.couple of e-mails, Thatcher saturation hysteria coverage. There
:08:09. > :08:12.is the news out there and many others want to hear it. Particularly
:08:12. > :08:18.concerned that other important stories like North Korea, you could
:08:18. > :08:22.not see them for several days? is a big story, the death of Mrs
:08:22. > :08:26.Thatcher is a big story and the meaning of her to the country, it is
:08:26. > :08:33.important to carry it and do it thoroughly. It was an international
:08:33. > :08:35.story, not just the BBC doing it in this way. I don't think it did blot
:08:35. > :08:41.out the coverage. We did lots of North Korea coverage even in the
:08:41. > :08:46.midst of Mrs Thatcher's death. We have gone back to it as our coverage
:08:46. > :08:49.has abated. When you look at viewing figures, Newsnight and the ten
:08:50. > :08:53.o'clock news, they were below average. Did the BBC perhaps
:08:53. > :08:58.overestimate what the public appetite would be for the amount of
:08:58. > :09:01.coverage that was given? The viewing figures were interesting but we
:09:01. > :09:05.would not build our coverage about our expectation that it would
:09:05. > :09:10.increase viewing figures. When a major national event happens, our
:09:10. > :09:14.duty is to coverage properly in ways that are appropriate and hope that
:09:14. > :09:19.will attract viewers. If in the end people were choosing between
:09:19. > :09:22.different programs that they could have watched and not watching all of
:09:22. > :09:28.everything, that is reasonable on their part but it does not mean we
:09:28. > :09:31.should not have done what we did. Thank you. Although coverage of
:09:31. > :09:35.Baroness Thatcher's death was the topic which dominated viewer
:09:35. > :09:41.reaction this week, there was one of the story which particularly caught
:09:41. > :09:45.your eyes. It is not like I am going out or going after people, I am not
:09:45. > :09:50.making these remarks... You made these remarks in a public area,
:09:50. > :09:55.didn't you? They were taken out of context and not meant to offend.
:09:55. > :10:00.They were written a long time ago. Being a young person, you do not
:10:00. > :10:06.understand how people can be -- how people can misinterpret them until
:10:07. > :10:12.you read back on them later on. they misinterpreted them, or
:10:12. > :10:18.interpreted them correctly? They are misinterpreted, I am not homophobic
:10:18. > :10:23.or racist. Paris Brown speaking to Stuart Flinders, before she resigned
:10:23. > :10:33.as the first use and police crime Commissioner. Saudah Ibrahim
:10:33. > :11:03.
:11:03. > :11:07.week. Next week, we will speak to the BBC's acting direction of --
:11:07. > :11:11.director of use, about how the organisation is working to restore
:11:11. > :11:21.trust in its journalism after the last tumultuous six months. Nutters
:11:21. > :11:24.
:11:24. > :11:30.know any points you would like to on the programme. Find us on