:00:05. > :00:15.but now it is time for News watch this week panorama's controversial
:00:15. > :00:28.
:00:28. > :00:37.It has been a tempestuous six months for BBC News. So how is it
:00:37. > :00:41.moving on? Last weekend, it emerged that BBC One's Panorama had been
:00:41. > :00:45.filming inside North Korea. How they got to do so became the
:00:45. > :00:55.subject of great controversy, with calls for the programme to be
:00:55. > :00:56.
:00:56. > :01:01.pulled from the schedules. But on Monday, it went out as planned.
:01:01. > :01:06.With tensions escalating, Panorama spends eight days under cover
:01:06. > :01:10.inside the most rigidly controlled nation on earth. So, welcome to the
:01:10. > :01:15.real North Korea. Hundreds of viewers were concerned about the
:01:15. > :01:18.way in which the reporter, John Sweeney, and his team, used a trip
:01:18. > :01:25.by a group of London School of Economics students as a cover for
:01:25. > :01:29.the secret filming. I am joined by the BBC's acting director of news.
:01:29. > :01:34.What was your main concern about the treatment of the students, as a
:01:35. > :01:40.viewer? As a teacher, I am concerned about the way students of
:01:40. > :01:45.any age are treated. It seems to me, there is a kind of double standard.
:01:45. > :01:49.We are being told that these students are grown-ups and adult,
:01:49. > :01:55.but on the other hand, they seem to have been treated like children,
:01:55. > :02:02.because they were not given remain information, they were told there
:02:02. > :02:07.was one journalists, but there were two. They were not asked to sign
:02:07. > :02:11.anything. Apparently there was a meeting in a pub. This is not the
:02:11. > :02:17.way to treat adults. There were those among them who were happy
:02:17. > :02:21.with what went on. But even if there are one or two, that is
:02:21. > :02:27.enough for concern, I would say. But I do not think their reaction
:02:27. > :02:31.is a justification. When you saw the programme, though, did you feel
:02:31. > :02:35.that what came out of the undercover investigation was
:02:35. > :02:42.justified? Actually, we were not told much about North Korea which
:02:42. > :02:45.we did not know. Before, I might well have said yes, show it,
:02:45. > :02:54.because we have risked people's lives making it, but having watched
:02:54. > :03:00.it, I would say no. This was a balance between an undercover
:03:00. > :03:07.operation, to enable the trip to take place, to be balanced against
:03:07. > :03:11.the safety of the team. Now, actually, I do not agree, apart
:03:11. > :03:17.from the fact that actually, all the students were over the age of
:03:17. > :03:23.21, apart from one, who was 18, so therefore, they were adults, and
:03:23. > :03:27.they were able to make up their own minds, and they were told twice in
:03:27. > :03:32.London, before the trip went ahead, that there was a journalist
:03:32. > :03:36.travelling with them, and they were all told this, and it was explained
:03:36. > :03:41.what the risks of that were. they were told other information
:03:41. > :03:45.later, in Beijing, which is the concern, that the BBC selectively
:03:45. > :03:50.gave out the information, so they did not have the opportunity to
:03:50. > :03:54.give informed consent at the start. What they were told in Beijing was
:03:54. > :03:59.that this was a BBC team, and that there was an additional person, who
:03:59. > :04:04.would be operating the camera. I am not convinced that the difference
:04:04. > :04:08.between a journalist and a BBC journalist is that great. This
:04:08. > :04:15.could have been a Pulitzer prize- winning New York Times journalist,
:04:15. > :04:20.who would have given the track just as much publicity as a BBC team.
:04:20. > :04:24.But the camera... Well, they all had cameras, because that is the
:04:24. > :04:28.world we live in. And people are wondering, the nature of this trip,
:04:28. > :04:37.given that it was set up by the wife of John Sweeney, who was being
:04:37. > :04:46.paid as a producer, is the BBC really happy about that? Well, it
:04:46. > :04:50.was not filmed with the BBC in mind. One person involved started to
:04:50. > :04:56.think about this before Christmas, and it so happened that LSE
:04:56. > :05:00.students applied to go on this trip. Why did the BBC get involved, then?
:05:00. > :05:06.That was after the students had signed up, and the trip would have
:05:06. > :05:16.gone ahead anyway, so it was asked whether or not Panorama could be
:05:16. > :05:17.
:05:17. > :05:23.involved at that point. Thank you both very much. Baroness Thatcher's
:05:23. > :05:26.death has resulted in a large postbag this week. BBC News
:05:26. > :05:32.reported -- reported extensively on the build-up to the funeral and
:05:32. > :05:42.showed the service itself, with contrasting responses from viewers.
:05:42. > :05:45.
:05:45. > :05:55.James Kay asked... More typical, though, was this, and, from
:05:55. > :06:09.
:06:09. > :06:12.Now, six months ago today, the Metropolitan Police launched a
:06:12. > :06:17.formal criminal investigation into alleged sexual abuse by Jimmy
:06:17. > :06:22.Savile. The BBC had just announced two inquiries of its own, and a
:06:22. > :06:25.chain of events was in place which, along with the naming of Lord
:06:25. > :06:30.McAlpine, led to the resignation of the Director-General, George
:06:30. > :06:34.Entwistle. An internal report found that there had been unacceptable
:06:34. > :06:39.management failings, and an independent inquiry described BBC
:06:39. > :06:49.News as going into virtual meltdown. Half a year on, a new Director-
:06:49. > :06:54.
:06:54. > :06:57.General has just been appointed. Fran Unsworth, we have had a lot of
:06:57. > :07:02.e-mails about this over the last few months, some of them saying,
:07:02. > :07:12.the whole culture of the BBC was criticised, and major changes are
:07:12. > :07:14.
:07:14. > :07:20.needed. Until this happens, it says, no trust will be in existence.
:07:20. > :07:22.the sackings, I would say that the whole chain of command, from the
:07:22. > :07:26.Newsnight deputy and a thick, through to the Director-General,
:07:26. > :07:30.has changed as a consequence. -- from the Newsnight deputy editor.
:07:30. > :07:38.So, there have been quite a lot of management changes which have taken
:07:38. > :07:43.place. But in terms of trusting news, which your view it talks
:07:43. > :07:49.about, I think the best judge of that is our programmes and
:07:49. > :07:53.audiences. What we saw as a result of the whole Savile meltdown, as it
:07:53. > :07:58.was described there, this was something which affected about 20
:07:58. > :08:02.people in the organisation out of a journalistic body of 8,000
:08:02. > :08:06.journalists. I think what you see is that we have continued during
:08:06. > :08:10.the course of this time to put up programmes to provide excellent
:08:10. > :08:17.news coverage on a fairly big range of storage, some of the major ones.
:08:17. > :08:23.So we must be judged on what we put out on air. -- stories. But the
:08:23. > :08:28.question remains, how much has really changed, given that several
:08:28. > :08:31.similar scandals emerged just a few weeks later? This e-mail says, are
:08:31. > :08:38.you aware of the huge loss of trust? People do not feel that they
:08:38. > :08:42.were honestly dealt with. Dealing with the loss of trust issue, we
:08:42. > :08:49.measure trust ratings at the BBC, and what we discovered was that
:08:49. > :08:53.undoubtedly, during the time of the Savile inquiry, and then the
:08:53. > :08:57.Pollard report, our trust ratings undoubtedly took a knock. But this
:08:57. > :09:00.week we discovered that they have recovered to what they were at
:09:00. > :09:05.around the time just before the Olympics. Does that mean nothing
:09:05. > :09:09.really needed to change, it was just a matter of time? Pollard
:09:09. > :09:12.identified things which he felt did need to change in the culture of
:09:12. > :09:17.the organisation, which is something we are addressing. We
:09:17. > :09:21.have a new Director-General, who has cumin. As you said, we have
:09:21. > :09:24.just appointed a new director of news, and we are looking at all of
:09:24. > :09:28.those Walcott things across the organisation. We are already
:09:28. > :09:34.starting to put in place some things which might address what we
:09:34. > :09:40.do. What sort of things?One thing Parlour have looked at was how we
:09:40. > :09:44.handle investigations. -- Nick Pollard. The Newsnight editor had a
:09:44. > :09:52.story which he decided not to pursue. In other words, Newsnight
:09:52. > :09:59.missed a story. They then went on to put out something which was
:09:59. > :10:02.wrong. So, basically, what we want to do is to look at how we handle
:10:02. > :10:06.our investigative journalism. If a programme does not want to run it,
:10:06. > :10:13.maybe it could hand it on to another programme, which might be
:10:13. > :10:16.able to pursue it further. That's one aspect. Again, there is the
:10:17. > :10:20.concern that it has been six months, and people have felt they have had
:10:20. > :10:25.very little communication about what has changed. They do not see
:10:25. > :10:29.evidence of it. I think it is quite crucial that Newsnight still does
:10:29. > :10:32.not have a new editor. People are wondering what is the future of
:10:32. > :10:36.that programme. Some people have suggested that the only way to make
:10:36. > :10:40.a really fresh start would have been to close that programme down.
:10:40. > :10:44.I do not agree with that. It is an enormous brand which has been
:10:44. > :10:49.around for 30 years. It has an extremely good track record. The
:10:49. > :10:54.programme has served our audiences incredibly well, apart from in this
:10:54. > :10:57.last few months. To get rid of the whole programme on the basis of a
:10:57. > :11:02.couple of errors would be a disservice to the audience. But I
:11:02. > :11:07.come back to what I said, our internal machinations, as it were,
:11:07. > :11:11.are less important than the product which viewers can assume, and can
:11:11. > :11:17.they have trust in it, and do they believe it? And I think the