:00:04. > :00:14.Now it is time for cap toggle News watch. This week, a certain birth
:00:14. > :00:20.
:00:20. > :00:24.Welcome to News watch with me semi-Ahmed. News this week might
:00:24. > :00:30.depend on what you call news. Did the BBC's coverage of the royal
:00:30. > :00:33.birth spent too long just waiting for something to happen? And did it
:00:33. > :00:43.convey a mood of national celebration or just help to
:00:43. > :00:43.
:00:43. > :00:47.The wait was long, the anticipation intense, but from the time on Monday
:00:47. > :00:51.morning when the Duchess of Cambridge went into labour, the BBC
:00:51. > :00:57.News machine along with the rest of the media devoted large amounts of
:00:57. > :00:59.airtime to this. Some breaking news for you, we are going straight to St
:00:59. > :01:05.Mary's Hospital in London to join our royal reporter Nicholas
:01:05. > :01:08.Witchell, it might give you a clue. Plenty more to come from here of
:01:08. > :01:12.course. None of it news, because that will come from Buckingham
:01:13. > :01:17.Palace, but that will not stop us. This is really a moment in history,
:01:17. > :01:20.and looking at that huge crowd now collecting here outside the
:01:20. > :01:24.forecourt, waiting for the formal announcement to arrive will stop I
:01:24. > :01:30.can tell you the Duchess of Cambridge has been delivered of a
:01:30. > :01:33.son. You and I are both on our knees so we can avoid getting people in
:01:33. > :01:39.shock, but that means we are probably the first people to be on
:01:39. > :01:43.our knees as the young prince comes out. How appropriate !What you
:01:43. > :01:45.think is going on behind the doors? I have been trying to avoid
:01:45. > :01:55.speculating for 48 hours, but I am asking pure speculation. Here they
:01:55. > :01:57.
:01:57. > :02:02.Any birth, particularly a royal one, is the cue for an outpouring of joy
:02:02. > :02:05.and approval. Terry Hazell permits which was full of both, e-mailing, I
:02:05. > :02:15.know you are likely to receive a number of complaints about the
:02:15. > :02:24.
:02:24. > :02:34.amount of time spent covering the in, thousands of them, including
:02:34. > :03:05.
:03:05. > :03:09.and proportionate, or more like the madness of Prince George? I'm joined
:03:09. > :03:14.by two viewers who got in touch with us, Dave Edwards in Tunbridge Wells
:03:14. > :03:20.and Jill Lord in Oxford. With me in the studio is Sam Taylor, the
:03:20. > :03:24.controller of the BBC News Channel. First, Dave, what was your concern?
:03:24. > :03:29.I felt the BBC News coverage of the royal birth on Monday can really
:03:29. > :03:35.best be summed up by one of your news reporters, who stated, here is
:03:35. > :03:40.the news. There is no news. There was a lot of foreign media there,
:03:40. > :03:44.and quite clearly, I doubt very much if in their countries they were
:03:44. > :03:50.providing the kind of wall to wall coverage of essentially a no news
:03:50. > :03:58.item. Exactly what is the viewer to gain from seeing multiple views of a
:03:58. > :04:03.closed court? Door? Or the repeated background facts and figures that to
:04:03. > :04:07.be honest, are not part of a news programme. Dave's comment is typical
:04:07. > :04:12.of thousands we got, which is too much coverage would not enough news.
:04:12. > :04:18.Three facts in three days: In labour, baby born, name. What with
:04:18. > :04:23.the justification between those facts? It was a unique day on
:04:23. > :04:27.Monday. It was a large story which there was the large amount of
:04:27. > :04:30.interest in around the world and in the UK, and it is not entirely fair
:04:30. > :04:34.to say we had endless coverage. We reported a range of other news
:04:34. > :04:37.stories. Some people came to the news channel more often than they
:04:37. > :04:42.might and an average day, and therefore got regular updates as the
:04:42. > :04:46.day progressed. He said, at this point, there is no news. That is a
:04:46. > :04:53.light-hearted reflection, but we know from our audience figures a lot
:04:53. > :04:57.of people tuned in to catch up with events. Gill, what do you think?
:04:57. > :05:02.agree with Dave. For me, the low point of reporting was on Tuesday,
:05:02. > :05:04.when I watched the news channel and you did not move from outside the
:05:04. > :05:11.Lindo Wing, so poor Nicholas Witchell was having once again to
:05:11. > :05:18.keep repeating himself. When we tuned in to Breakfast, the Duke
:05:18. > :05:22.Duchess of Cambridge had gone into hospital, but they were not going to
:05:22. > :05:25.update you on the labour through the day, but Nicholas Witchell was
:05:25. > :05:30.speech every ten minutes, so he just kept repeating the same thing on and
:05:30. > :05:35.on. There was no news there. Certainly keep it in the headlines,
:05:35. > :05:38.but not that amount of coverage. People think you have made a
:05:38. > :05:42.decision to deploy, and therefore you are trying to justify having
:05:42. > :05:45.people in these places when nothing is going on. Just to talk
:05:45. > :05:50.specifically about Tuesday, we were happily reporting on the news at
:05:50. > :05:55.that time, things like the Pope, Prince Charles comes out of the
:05:55. > :06:00.hospital to speak to the media after visiting his new grandson, and at
:06:00. > :06:03.that point, he says you will see him in a minute. In that sense, us and
:06:04. > :06:09.the rest of the world's media had no option but to wait and see what
:06:09. > :06:11.happened at that point. How long was it? About an hour. We were given
:06:11. > :06:16.several warnings it was imminent. What is interesting is, over that
:06:16. > :06:19.hour, our audience built continuously to reach a point where
:06:19. > :06:23.on the news channel at the point they came out of the door, more than
:06:23. > :06:32.two million people were watching. Some complaints said they found the
:06:32. > :06:36.tone to fawning, even sycophantic. suppose that is a question, but I
:06:36. > :06:39.think Simon McCoy was very careful to reflect the BLT and some of the
:06:39. > :06:43.range of views were there. Peter Hunt and Nicholas Witchell were also
:06:43. > :06:49.very measured and how they talk. The other thing we did was, once the key
:06:49. > :06:53.events had taken place, we made a of views. We spoke to the boss of
:06:53. > :06:56.Republic, which campaigns against the monarchy. That was controversial
:06:56. > :06:59.from the other side. I Wonga if there is a sense that because there
:07:00. > :07:04.was concern over the tone of the coverage, I Tuesday there was a
:07:04. > :07:07.sense that we had better get some Republicans on. No, I think you have
:07:07. > :07:12.to cover events as they happen. You can't debate what an event means
:07:12. > :07:14.that the nation until it is fully happen, so after the birth, we were
:07:14. > :07:22.happy to draw on several voices who had a different view, both on the
:07:22. > :07:28.coverage itself and on the way that we covered it and the what it meant
:07:28. > :07:33.the monarchy. Dave, convinced? am not. I know we are taught you
:07:33. > :07:38.about one story over two days, but in context, we have had a year's
:07:38. > :07:41.worth of silver jubilee celebrations, a year's worth, which
:07:41. > :07:49.we are still halfway through, of the 60th anniversary of the Coronation,
:07:49. > :07:53.nine months of has Kate got a bomb or not? I sure we are now heading
:07:53. > :07:58.into a toddler two years. At some point, the BBC needs to look at all
:07:58. > :08:03.that content of the Royal family, all of its contents such as this,
:08:03. > :08:09.and whether it is actually informing, inviting a reasoned and
:08:09. > :08:14.balanced debate, and to be honest, representing the views of people in
:08:14. > :08:17.Bucklebury, not the views of the nation. Jill, you asked about
:08:17. > :08:23.deployment of resources and where the BBC had reporters. Yes, on
:08:23. > :08:26.Monday, or Tuesday, reporters were outside the hospital, in
:08:26. > :08:32.Bucklebury, on Anglesey, outside Kensington Palace and Buckingham
:08:32. > :08:36.Palace. Bucklebury is the village where Kate was born, and Anglesey
:08:36. > :08:41.where the family is based. I know, but on Anglesey, there was nothing
:08:41. > :08:47.there to report. Similarly at Bucklebury. They interviewed some
:08:47. > :08:52.people who obviously, once the baby had been born, work were glad to
:08:52. > :08:55.raise toast, but the next morning, the News reported the village had
:08:55. > :08:59.been celebrating all night, and the evidence was an interview with a few
:08:59. > :09:07.primary school children. It just seems to be manufacturing news when
:09:07. > :09:10.it was not there. I think it is important to reflect how people
:09:10. > :09:14.respond to the story, and that is why were in some other locations.
:09:14. > :09:17.But she is saying those locations did not have a story there was
:09:17. > :09:21.height to justify being there. think Bucklebury is a reasonable
:09:21. > :09:25.location to be in. It is now where Prince George has gone to stay for
:09:25. > :09:29.the next few days, so in advance, speaking to people who knew the
:09:30. > :09:34.family, I think that was relevant. But I think one aborted thing is, in
:09:34. > :09:38.the end, this is two days of coverage on a major story of
:09:38. > :09:43.historic significance in Britain, the third in line to the throne, and
:09:43. > :09:47.one that has happened, we moved on to report that the stories. I
:09:47. > :09:51.understand the concern to some extent about the scale of the
:09:51. > :09:55.coverage, but for many others, it was a day when people really wanted
:09:55. > :10:04.to hear what was going on. Thank you to Sam Taylor, and thank you to
:10:04. > :10:07.Just time before we go for a brief round-up of other topics you have
:10:07. > :10:13.been having your say on, starting with Wednesday's train crash in
:10:13. > :10:23.Spain. As the death toll rose, some complaints came into, including this
:10:23. > :10:25.
:10:25. > :10:30.complaints came into, including this death of two teenage girls in a
:10:30. > :10:33.river in Tyne & Wear. The bodies of both girls, Toni-Beth Purvis and
:10:33. > :10:41.Chloe Fowler have been recovered from the River Wear. Our reporter is
:10:41. > :10:51.therefore is now. What Danny Savage was wearing prompted a call to
:10:51. > :11:05.
:11:05. > :11:10.off the air August, but keep sending as your views. We will read them all
:11:10. > :11:20.and feature some on the programme when we return. You can contact us
:11:20. > :11:21.