26/07/2013 Newswatch

Now it is time for cap toggle News watch. This week, a certain birth

Welcome to News watch with me semi-Ahmed. News this week might

depend on what you call news. Did the BBC's coverage of the royal

birth spent too long just waiting for something to happen? And did it

convey a mood of national celebration or just help to

The wait was long, the anticipation intense, but from the time on Monday

morning when the Duchess of Cambridge went into labour, the BBC

News machine along with the rest of the media devoted large amounts of

airtime to this. Some breaking news for you, we are going straight to St

Mary's Hospital in London to join our royal reporter Nicholas

Witchell, it might give you a clue. Plenty more to come from here of

course. None of it news, because that will come from Buckingham

Palace, but that will not stop us. This is really a moment in history,

and looking at that huge crowd now collecting here outside the

forecourt, waiting for the formal announcement to arrive will stop I

can tell you the Duchess of Cambridge has been delivered of a

son. You and I are both on our knees so we can avoid getting people in

shock, but that means we are probably the first people to be on

our knees as the young prince comes out. How appropriate !What you

think is going on behind the doors? I have been trying to avoid

speculating for 48 hours, but I am asking pure speculation. Here they

Any birth, particularly a royal one, is the cue for an outpouring of joy

and approval. Terry Hazell permits which was full of both, e-mailing, I

know you are likely to receive a number of complaints about the

amount of time spent covering the in, thousands of them, including

and proportionate, or more like the madness of Prince George? I'm joined

by two viewers who got in touch with us, Dave Edwards in Tunbridge Wells

and Jill Lord in Oxford. With me in the studio is Sam Taylor, the

controller of the BBC News Channel. First, Dave, what was your concern?

I felt the BBC News coverage of the royal birth on Monday can really

best be summed up by one of your news reporters, who stated, here is

the news. There is no news. There was a lot of foreign media there,

and quite clearly, I doubt very much if in their countries they were

providing the kind of wall to wall coverage of essentially a no news

item. Exactly what is the viewer to gain from seeing multiple views of a

closed court? Door? Or the repeated background facts and figures that to

be honest, are not part of a news programme. Dave's comment is typical

of thousands we got, which is too much coverage would not enough news.

Three facts in three days: In labour, baby born, name. What with

the justification between those facts? It was a unique day on

Monday. It was a large story which there was the large amount of

interest in around the world and in the UK, and it is not entirely fair

to say we had endless coverage. We reported a range of other news

stories. Some people came to the news channel more often than they

might and an average day, and therefore got regular updates as the

day progressed. He said, at this point, there is no news. That is a

light-hearted reflection, but we know from our audience figures a lot

of people tuned in to catch up with events. Gill, what do you think?

agree with Dave. For me, the low point of reporting was on Tuesday,

when I watched the news channel and you did not move from outside the

Lindo Wing, so poor Nicholas Witchell was having once again to

keep repeating himself. When we tuned in to Breakfast, the Duke

Duchess of Cambridge had gone into hospital, but they were not going to

update you on the labour through the day, but Nicholas Witchell was

speech every ten minutes, so he just kept repeating the same thing on and

on. There was no news there. Certainly keep it in the headlines,

but not that amount of coverage. People think you have made a

decision to deploy, and therefore you are trying to justify having

people in these places when nothing is going on. Just to talk

specifically about Tuesday, we were happily reporting on the news at

that time, things like the Pope, Prince Charles comes out of the

hospital to speak to the media after visiting his new grandson, and at

that point, he says you will see him in a minute. In that sense, us and

the rest of the world's media had no option but to wait and see what

happened at that point. How long was it? About an hour. We were given

several warnings it was imminent. What is interesting is, over that

hour, our audience built continuously to reach a point where

on the news channel at the point they came out of the door, more than

two million people were watching. Some complaints said they found the

tone to fawning, even sycophantic. suppose that is a question, but I

think Simon McCoy was very careful to reflect the BLT and some of the

range of views were there. Peter Hunt and Nicholas Witchell were also

very measured and how they talk. The other thing we did was, once the key

events had taken place, we made a of views. We spoke to the boss of

Republic, which campaigns against the monarchy. That was controversial

from the other side. I Wonga if there is a sense that because there

was concern over the tone of the coverage, I Tuesday there was a

sense that we had better get some Republicans on. No, I think you have

to cover events as they happen. You can't debate what an event means

that the nation until it is fully happen, so after the birth, we were

happy to draw on several voices who had a different view, both on the

coverage itself and on the way that we covered it and the what it meant

the monarchy. Dave, convinced? am not. I know we are taught you

about one story over two days, but in context, we have had a year's

worth of silver jubilee celebrations, a year's worth, which

we are still halfway through, of the 60th anniversary of the Coronation,

nine months of has Kate got a bomb or not? I sure we are now heading

into a toddler two years. At some point, the BBC needs to look at all

that content of the Royal family, all of its contents such as this,

and whether it is actually informing, inviting a reasoned and

balanced debate, and to be honest, representing the views of people in

Bucklebury, not the views of the nation. Jill, you asked about

deployment of resources and where the BBC had reporters. Yes, on

Monday, or Tuesday, reporters were outside the hospital, in

Bucklebury, on Anglesey, outside Kensington Palace and Buckingham

Palace. Bucklebury is the village where Kate was born, and Anglesey

where the family is based. I know, but on Anglesey, there was nothing

there to report. Similarly at Bucklebury. They interviewed some

people who obviously, once the baby had been born, work were glad to

raise toast, but the next morning, the News reported the village had

been celebrating all night, and the evidence was an interview with a few

primary school children. It just seems to be manufacturing news when

it was not there. I think it is important to reflect how people

respond to the story, and that is why were in some other locations.

But she is saying those locations did not have a story there was

height to justify being there. think Bucklebury is a reasonable

location to be in. It is now where Prince George has gone to stay for

the next few days, so in advance, speaking to people who knew the

family, I think that was relevant. But I think one aborted thing is, in

the end, this is two days of coverage on a major story of

historic significance in Britain, the third in line to the throne, and

one that has happened, we moved on to report that the stories. I

understand the concern to some extent about the scale of the

coverage, but for many others, it was a day when people really wanted

to hear what was going on. Thank you to Sam Taylor, and thank you to

Just time before we go for a brief round-up of other topics you have

been having your say on, starting with Wednesday's train crash in

Spain. As the death toll rose, some complaints came into, including this

complaints came into, including this death of two teenage girls in a

river in Tyne & Wear. The bodies of both girls, Toni-Beth Purvis and

Chloe Fowler have been recovered from the River Wear. Our reporter is

therefore is now. What Danny Savage was wearing prompted a call to

off the air August, but keep sending as your views. We will read them all

and feature some on the programme when we return. You can contact us