:00:00. > :00:00.police were searching a number of locations. Now time for News watch
:00:00. > :00:00.with Samir Ahmed. This week, protests about coverage of the
:00:00. > :00:18.protest. Hello and welcome to New swatch.
:00:19. > :00:22.Coming up this week, thousands marching London against austerity
:00:23. > :00:26.cuts as BBC News `` is BBC News uninterested? He ask if coverage of
:00:27. > :00:30.the phone hacking trial shows that the media is obsessed with reporting
:00:31. > :00:33.its. It is showing this ice is recruitment video give terrorists
:00:34. > :00:42.the oxygen of publicity? Last Saturday, just outside this BBC
:00:43. > :00:50.building in central London, tens of thousands of protesters set off on a
:00:51. > :00:53.march to Parliament Square. The group included politicians, union
:00:54. > :00:57.leaders and the comedian Russell Brand, and they were demonstrating
:00:58. > :01:01.against the impact of cuts being imposed under the government's
:01:02. > :01:05.so`called austerity programme. But if you didn't see or hear about it
:01:06. > :01:09.on BBC News, you were not alone. Thousands of people have complained
:01:10. > :01:10.to the BBC that it did not give the demonstration the attention it
:01:11. > :02:04.deserved. Among them was Dale Mason. We asked the BBC to come on and
:02:05. > :02:08.discuss this new swatch, but they declined, sending us a statement
:02:09. > :02:12.which I will read in a moment. In the meantime, one of those who was
:02:13. > :02:15.marching on the streets of London last Saturday and encouraged others
:02:16. > :02:20.on Twitter to disk `` to express their desert is fact and with the
:02:21. > :02:24.BBC's dissatisfaction is the journalist Dylan Jones. What is your
:02:25. > :02:29.concern? It is cowardly not to turn up to respond to these concerns in
:02:30. > :02:37.person. I want to show you hear a report from 2011 on the BBC. It is a
:02:38. > :02:41.report about pro `cuts demonstration, organised bike rally
:02:42. > :02:49.against debts. This demonstration, there were not 10,000 or 5000 or
:02:50. > :02:52.1000 people, 350 people turned up, yet this demonstration merited
:02:53. > :02:57.extensive coverage on the BBC. 50,000 people demonstrated last week
:02:58. > :03:01.and there was no coverage except when the BBC were bombarded with so
:03:02. > :03:05.many complaints they posted a half`hearted link which had a video
:03:06. > :03:08.lasting 20 seconds with no commentary. Millions of people
:03:09. > :03:12.support the aims of this demonstration. Most people in this
:03:13. > :03:17.country want renationalisation of the rail, energy, higher taxes on
:03:18. > :03:20.the rich, they think the cuts are unfair and about a quarter of the
:03:21. > :03:23.population oppose all cuts whatsoever. There will be people
:03:24. > :03:27.watching who think I don't agree with that view, but I think they
:03:28. > :03:31.would agree that if that is such a large vein of public opinion, of
:03:32. > :03:37.people marching on the streets at a time when the government is not
:03:38. > :03:40.being properly challenged about it `` about the narrative, there should
:03:41. > :03:46.be some coverage of it, especially when coverage is given to a
:03:47. > :03:51.demonstration with only 350 people in it. The BBC says, we covered this
:03:52. > :03:57.demonstration on the BBC News channel with five reports throughout
:03:58. > :04:24.the evening and on the BBC website and social media.
:04:25. > :04:29.about the length of grass on the Wimbledon court. This is not the
:04:30. > :04:32.days of the 1980s, when you have the six o'clock and the ten o'clock
:04:33. > :04:37.news. There is a massive BBC website. There is rolling news
:04:38. > :04:45.coverage on the news channel. Yet there was no coverage. They ran some
:04:46. > :04:49.pictures... They posted a 22nd video, which informed people there
:04:50. > :04:54.was no commentary, it showed a few people marching around and it only
:04:55. > :04:59.came... Over 6000 people have complained to the BBC. I doubt there
:05:00. > :05:03.has been any more complaints for a long time indeed. People like you
:05:04. > :05:09.feel very passionately about this, but it is also a politically
:05:10. > :05:13.divisive issue. It is significant that most other organisations, news
:05:14. > :05:17.organisations, did not cover it with big reports. There is an issue about
:05:18. > :05:19.the numbers who came and the timing. If this march had been pegged to
:05:20. > :05:24.something like an imminent parliamentary vote, perhaps there
:05:25. > :05:28.might have been a judgement that it was more newsworthy event. Austerity
:05:29. > :05:31.is a constant news story, never ending. At the moment, not least
:05:32. > :05:33.with the government's narrative that are turning the
:05:34. > :05:35.with the government's narrative that are economy around even as living
:05:36. > :05:39.standards are falling, the opportunity to show there are people
:05:40. > :05:43.in Britain who disagree with that narrative and don't think the Labour
:05:44. > :05:47.leadership are doing all they can, that is a very substantial news
:05:48. > :05:52.story. There was a broader problem. This is why the march started at the
:05:53. > :05:56.BBC. This is more ludicrous, they could not send the journalist
:05:57. > :06:00.outside because of the lack of coverage of these issues. You think
:06:01. > :06:04.the BBC is deliberately choosing to ignore these types of
:06:05. > :06:09.demonstrations? Absolutely, the research by Cardiff University
:06:10. > :06:12.found, for example, that on the six o'clock news there is 19 times more
:06:13. > :06:18.interviews of business sources than trade union sources and trade
:06:19. > :06:22.unionists working on this march. There is a bigger issue about the
:06:23. > :06:26.attitude of trade unions. They are the biggest democratic movement in
:06:27. > :06:32.the country, over 6 million workers belong to trade unions, yet there is
:06:33. > :06:37.19 more times coverage of business leaders. The BBC rarely shows this
:06:38. > :06:40.and I have to say someone had kicked off Juncker that demonstration and a
:06:41. > :06:46.window had been smashed, there would have been cameras. Even if you
:06:47. > :06:50.disagree with the protesters they should be able to air their views
:06:51. > :06:54.and have a public broadcaster like to BBC give a platform, scrutinise
:06:55. > :06:59.them, challenge them, criticised their arguments and put
:07:00. > :07:05.counterarguments to them, but to not show any coverage whatsoever of tens
:07:06. > :07:06.of thousands of people on an anti`government demonstration
:07:07. > :07:10.marching through London is not defensible. That is why 6000 people
:07:11. > :07:18.complained. Owen Jones, thanks very much. Nobody complained this week of
:07:19. > :07:25.an insufficient focus from BBC News on the phone hacking trial, which
:07:26. > :07:28.concluded on `` on Tuesday. Do you stand by what you said, that you
:07:29. > :07:33.believed this was a witch hunt? The verdict, which saw Rebekah Brooks
:07:34. > :07:36.cleared of all charges, while her successor Andy Coulson was found
:07:37. > :07:40.guilty of conspiracy to hack phones, received extensive coverage
:07:41. > :07:42.on the BBC, including a hastily scheduled panorama special on
:07:43. > :07:49.Wednesday night. This media scrum on Thursday included more than one BBC
:07:50. > :07:54.reporter cost of it was all too much for some viewers, including Vivian
:07:55. > :07:59.Coombs, who left this phone message. The hacking trial seems to have gone
:08:00. > :08:05.on forever. We hear the same old evidence being rehashed over and
:08:06. > :08:08.over and over. It seems anything to do with the media, they can't stop
:08:09. > :08:17.examining their own navels all the time. Also `` I am all for having it
:08:18. > :08:20.reported, but not to the exclusion of everything else. We need a sense
:08:21. > :08:24.of proportion and realise there are more things going on in the world
:08:25. > :08:28.than Rebekah Brooks and her big hairdo. Since he's suffered serious
:08:29. > :08:33.head injuries in a skiing accident last December, the medical statement
:08:34. > :08:36.of `` the medical state of Michael Schumacher has captured attention.
:08:37. > :08:41.He was placed in a medically induced coma for months, but has now left
:08:42. > :08:45.hospital. It emerged this week that some of his medical files had been
:08:46. > :08:47.stolen and were being offered for sale. On Thursday the BBC News
:08:48. > :09:07.website ran a story whose headline struck Martin Zeltweg is ironic.
:09:08. > :09:14.The emergence last Friday of a recruitment video for the Islamist
:09:15. > :09:19.militant group ISIS, featuring two men from Cardiff and one from
:09:20. > :09:22.Aberdeen, prompted a series of reports on BBC News. The video shows
:09:23. > :09:26.the emerging as a British Muslims to join their war, but it's repeated
:09:27. > :09:27.appearance concert and a number of news watch viewers including Susan
:09:28. > :09:51.Turner. Finally, the BBC sends out breaking
:09:52. > :09:54.news alerts or push notifications to smartphone users but the one send
:09:55. > :10:08.out on Wednesday morning was very strange indeed. It read...
:10:09. > :10:15.Confused? Had the service been hijacked by pranksters? Nope. And
:10:16. > :10:18.apologises `` an apology was later sent out for what was sent out, test
:10:19. > :11:01.notifications, in error. Thank you for that and all your
:11:02. > :11:04.comments this week. If you want to share your opinions on BBC News and
:11:05. > :11:08.current affairs, or appear on the programme, you can call us, or
:11:09. > :11:22.e`mail us. You can have a look at our website,
:11:23. > :11:25.or contact us on Twitter. You can search for previous topics and watch
:11:26. > :11:30.any edition of the programme. That is all from us. We will be back to
:11:31. > :11:41.hear your thoughts next week. Goodbye.
:11:42. > :11:48.Hello, plenty of whether watching going on, rumbles of thunder and big
:11:49. > :11:52.thunderstorms across parts of Norfolk and localised flooding.
:11:53. > :11:53.Storms in the Glastonbury area also and