12/04/2013 Newswatch

leader divisive in death as well as life, but did Baroness Thatcher

really deserve comments like this, airing just hours after her death?

Margaret thatcher Streit -- destroyed my hometown, I am glad she

is death. We will discuss BBC coverage this week. There can be few

people alive during her premiership who don't have a firm view about the

then Margaret Thatcher and this week we have been treated to the full

gamut of those views. Here are just a few of them. It has just been

announced that Baroness Thatcher has died this morning. Today is a truly

sad day for our country. We have lost a great prime minister, a great

leader, a Great Britain. The light of her legacy will shine down the

generations. Very sad. A strong lady. But this was a politician

whose death inspired some in parts of London and Glasgow to take to the

streets to celebrate. That woman made my youth misery. She is to

blame for the ills in society. Margaret Thatcher did great hurt the

people in Britain, to working class communities across Britain. Also to

people here in Ireland. A lot of people hated the woman and what she

stood for, hated what she does to us. Hundreds of you contacted the

BBC with a range of reactions to the coverage. I will get the perspective

of the head of programmes for BBC News, Ceri Thomas. Before that, we

will hear from two of the viewers who got in touch with us this week,

Louise Robertson in our Glasgow studio and Lesley Collinson, who

joins us from Tunbridge Wells. What was your concern? I was concerned

that the reporting of Margaret Thatcher's death was heavily biased

against Margaret Thatcher and in extremely poor taste, because she is

a mother, grandmother, she has friends, she has family. Who would

like to hear some of the things that were being reported and some of the

comments? What were the comments that really got to you, that crossed

the line? People saying how glad they were that she was dead, dancing

with slogans written on their T-shirts. If I was in the grieving

process and that was my family, I would -- it would be awfully hard to

cope with. I thought perhaps if nothing nice could be said, nothing

should be set at all. That was on the six o'clock News on the day of

her death being announced. People would say she is a divisive figure

and why should the BBC sensor that? Absolutely, but although we live in

a wonderful democracy you have to have respect for peoples feelings

and to come on with such blatant disrespect when somebody has just

passed away is absolutely unnecessary. In six months time,

maybe, let's open the debate then, but the day after a person has died

is an acceptable, in my view. Robertson, you have heard my Leslie

was dismayed. Your reasons are different? My reasons are different.

When I heard the news about Margaret Thatcher and put on BBC News 24,

listening to that at the same time as we were catching up about social

media about people responding to it, my first thought was you would

not think you were listening to the same story because on the first day

it was reported by the BBC News, the reporters were trying to outdo each

other with a pro-Thatcher agenda, talking about the great leader and

how she had made this great country of ours. I thought the reporters

were stiff -- sycophantic in the extreme. We pay our licence fee and

we should be entitled to hear any event reported in an impartial way

and a way that reflects the experience we have had living

through the Thatcher years. mentioned social media, there is

concern about the national conversation being vitriolic and

unrestrained. There is the dip issue about different regions and Scotland

being different to the view in London, say? It is not just

Scotland, people in Liverpool, Wales, Manchester, all over the

country, there would be people feeling the way the BBC reported it,

especially on the first day, they would not recognise the reality of

the picture you were creating Thatcher. Thank you both very much

for coming on Newswatch. Lets put those points to Ceri Thomas. You

were criticised for being too sycophantic or two was disrespectful

but there is a concern about whether the BBC got the tone right,

especially the voices in the first few hours, the six o'clock News on

the day of her death? We would say that we have a duty to be respectful

to Mrs Thatcher, as we would beat anybody who had died so recently in

that way, but at this it -- at the same time we have to examine the

legacy and look at the shades of opinion that sprang up in the

aftermath of her death coming through. I think we did that. We

were respectful. The interesting thing is it is an art, not a

science. You can plan and prepare and thinking these things through in

advance but when the moment comes and you are making judgements in

real-time, it is very unlikely we are going to get everything

absolutely right. But you can establish some parameters. This is

an event that was anticipated and planned for. Waiting until the day

after might make all the difference? When people say we are glad she died

and it is within six hours of her death. I can't see that you could

have laid down parameters that would have excluded that comment in

advance. It is not saying that it should have been there on the day,

in retrospect maybe it was too harsh at that point. That opinion existed

and it is right that we reflected the fact it existed. Was that a bit

soon, a bit jarring, possibly, yes, but it is difficult to say we must

not do that. Another issue, how far the coverage was reflecting the

national conversation. Partly what Louise was saying about social

media, which was very critical overall and very anti-Lady Thatcher.

How did the BBC deal with that? You talk about the importance of social

media coverage. We don't say it drives our coverage. Our job is to

reflect shades of opinion within the country. Social media will be

informed by some of that opinion but it is not an accurate reflection of

the whole of society's opinion. focused on coverage that people felt

was either to carve -- to positive or two negative but a lot of

complaints have been about excessive coverage, that we should move on. A

couple of e-mails, Thatcher saturation hysteria coverage. There

is the news out there and many others want to hear it. Particularly

concerned that other important stories like North Korea, you could

not see them for several days? is a big story, the death of Mrs

Thatcher is a big story and the meaning of her to the country, it is

important to carry it and do it thoroughly. It was an international

story, not just the BBC doing it in this way. I don't think it did blot

out the coverage. We did lots of North Korea coverage even in the

midst of Mrs Thatcher's death. We have gone back to it as our coverage

has abated. When you look at viewing figures, Newsnight and the ten

o'clock news, they were below average. Did the BBC perhaps

overestimate what the public appetite would be for the amount of

coverage that was given? The viewing figures were interesting but we

would not build our coverage about our expectation that it would

increase viewing figures. When a major national event happens, our

duty is to coverage properly in ways that are appropriate and hope that

will attract viewers. If in the end people were choosing between

different programs that they could have watched and not watching all of

everything, that is reasonable on their part but it does not mean we

should not have done what we did. Thank you. Although coverage of

Baroness Thatcher's death was the topic which dominated viewer

reaction this week, there was one of the story which particularly caught

your eyes. It is not like I am going out or going after people, I am not

making these remarks... You made these remarks in a public area,

didn't you? They were taken out of context and not meant to offend.

They were written a long time ago. Being a young person, you do not

understand how people can be -- how people can misinterpret them until

you read back on them later on. they misinterpreted them, or

interpreted them correctly? They are misinterpreted, I am not homophobic

or racist. Paris Brown speaking to Stuart Flinders, before she resigned

as the first use and police crime Commissioner. Saudah Ibrahim

week. Next week, we will speak to the BBC's acting direction of --

director of use, about how the organisation is working to restore

trust in its journalism after the last tumultuous six months. Nutters

know any points you would like to on the programme. Find us on