:00:00. > :00:00.awards next month. Those are the latest headlines. Now, we will have
:00:00. > :00:09.a full round-up of the day 's news but before that, news watch...
:00:10. > :00:14.Coming up, Dame Janet Smith has been looking into how the BBC handled
:00:15. > :00:18.reports of abuse by Jimmy Savile, but does every news broadcast
:00:19. > :00:23.on the subject have to feature his grinning face?
:00:24. > :00:26.And the pay of junior doctors is just one statistic that has been
:00:27. > :00:36.Does the BBC report the numbers in a clear and impartial way?
:00:37. > :00:38.The abuse committed by Jimmy Savile and the circumstances surrounding it
:00:39. > :00:41.have been extremely difficult for the BBC to report
:00:42. > :00:46.More than three years ago the corporation set up a review
:00:47. > :00:50.headed by Dame Janet Smith into its culture and practices
:00:51. > :00:57.This week a draft of the report was leaked and that led
:00:58. > :00:59.to an objection we have heard before from viewers.
:01:00. > :01:49.Another fraught issue cropped up again this week
:01:50. > :01:51.when the Prime Minister again criticised the BBC for referring
:01:52. > :01:55.to the organisation known as Islamic State rather
:01:56. > :02:00.Here he is clashing with Sarah Montague
:02:01. > :02:02.on Monday's Today Programme on Radio 4.
:02:03. > :02:05.Can I say again that I think Muslim families around the country
:02:06. > :02:07.would have held their heads in despair this morning when,
:02:08. > :02:10.once again, you just called it Islamic State.
:02:11. > :02:14.You didn't even say "so-called" Islamic State.
:02:15. > :02:20.David Cameron is not the only one who thinks that changing
:02:21. > :02:23.the terminology is due, as this email from a viewer
:02:24. > :02:51.One subject we will be hearing a great deal about this year
:02:52. > :02:55.We won't know until November who is going to be following
:02:56. > :02:59.President Barack Obama into the White House,
:03:00. > :03:02.but the business of voting gets going in little over a week
:03:03. > :03:04.when Republicans and Democrats both hold a caucus in Iowa,
:03:05. > :03:07.the start of the process of selecting candidates.
:03:08. > :03:10.This week, the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump received
:03:11. > :03:13.the endorsement of someone who has been absent from the American
:03:14. > :03:20.She's still a darling of the Tea Party right
:03:21. > :03:23.and the evangelical wing of the Republican Party.
:03:24. > :03:30.But she is gaffe-prone, as was seen when she ran
:03:31. > :03:39.They say the difference between a hockey mom and pit bull?
:03:40. > :03:47.You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.
:03:48. > :03:50.Rather like Donald Trump today, Sarah Palin has always been widely
:03:51. > :03:53.mocked by sections of the British media.
:03:54. > :03:57.No, as several viewers pointed out, including Peter Jackson
:03:58. > :04:24.Numbers are at the heart of much news reporting but their use
:04:25. > :04:26.is proving increasingly controversial.
:04:27. > :04:29.Take the disputed figures for what the Government has been
:04:30. > :04:33.spending on flood defences or its claim that stroke victims
:04:34. > :04:36.are 20% more likely to die at a weekend, which has been
:04:37. > :04:40.challenged by some in the medical establishment.
:04:41. > :04:43.And then there is the argument over how much junior doctors will be paid
:04:44. > :04:45.under the proposed new contract, which Home Affairs Editor Mark
:04:46. > :04:51.The Government calculates that three quarters of junior doctors
:04:52. > :04:55.will actually be better off, many will see no difference at all
:04:56. > :05:04.They certainly do, and on Tuesday, viewer Stephen Lochear spotted
:05:05. > :05:36.And Martin Green had this to say about a report on high levels
:05:37. > :05:38.of Omega 3 fatty acids being associated with a 70% increase
:05:39. > :06:16.Well, the BBC Trust has set up a review to look into this whole
:06:17. > :06:19.area of the use of statistics on BBC news and current affairs.
:06:20. > :06:21.It will be overseen by an independent panel
:06:22. > :06:23.which includes Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute
:06:24. > :06:27.of Fiscal Studies, and he joins me now.
:06:28. > :06:31.From a journalist's point of view, it can feel that there is a lot more
:06:32. > :06:32.data out there available for analysis.
:06:33. > :06:37.Do you think that is the case, there is almost too much
:06:38. > :06:41.There is a vast amount of information or rather
:06:42. > :06:44.there is a vast amount of data and turning that into useful
:06:45. > :06:48.trustworthy information is incredibly difficult.
:06:49. > :06:50.You really need people who are experts in understanding
:06:51. > :06:55.There are a number of difficulties here.
:06:56. > :06:58.One is that Government departments and statisticians have access
:06:59. > :07:02.to that data a little bit before everyone else they can put it out
:07:03. > :07:05.and put their particular spin on it and if you need to respond
:07:06. > :07:07.immediately, it is often very difficult to know quite
:07:08. > :07:13.where the spin ends and the facts start.
:07:14. > :07:16.And because we are in this 24-hour news cycle, the data comes out
:07:17. > :07:19.at nine o'clock in the morning and people are responding
:07:20. > :07:25.It would be nice at least to leave it until the one o'clock news,
:07:26. > :07:28.to give it time to understand it and one my frustrations
:07:29. > :07:30.is when we have the Budget or the Spending Review,
:07:31. > :07:35.we at the IFS put information out the next day but two days later,
:07:36. > :07:39.everyone has forgotten about it, by which time you might actually
:07:40. > :07:41.have done more serious looking at what was it was about.
:07:42. > :07:44.Let us look at some specific complaints we have had.
:07:45. > :07:46.We have had this email from Stuart Orange from London.
:07:47. > :07:48.He feels that the BBC misuses graphs online.
:07:49. > :07:50.He points to a recent graph on climate change.
:07:51. > :08:11.Do you have a particular concern about graphs?
:08:12. > :08:16.It is a classic problem about graphs because where you set the origin
:08:17. > :08:18.and the bottom of the vertical axis makes a huge difference
:08:19. > :08:23.to whether a change looks big or small.
:08:24. > :08:26.If you do this in the context of climate change, people worry
:08:27. > :08:31.about whether the climate will increase or temperatures
:08:32. > :08:34.will increase by 2 degrees above preindustrial times and 2
:08:35. > :08:38.degrees on a chart which starts at zero and goes up to 30,
:08:39. > :08:42.it is a tiny change and in some sense that is one way of looking
:08:43. > :08:50.at it but 2 degrees is very important and maybe it is important
:08:51. > :08:54.to put that within a small amount of space so it does look big and it
:08:55. > :08:57.does look very different according to where you put the axis
:08:58. > :09:03.In many ways it is an editorial judgment about what is big
:09:04. > :09:10.And the problem is you can show things that are not very big
:09:11. > :09:15.as being big, so unemployment, from 6% to 8.5% can look huge
:09:16. > :09:17.if the graph only goes between 5.7% and 6%.
:09:18. > :09:19.We have another e-mail from Jeff Simmons.
:09:20. > :09:38.It is a good point about what analogy people
:09:39. > :09:43.I think analogies are very important and that is a good example.
:09:44. > :09:48.I have no idea what 10,000 square metres looks
:09:49. > :09:51.like but I have a pretty good idea of what a football pitch looks
:09:52. > :09:55.like so if you say that something is 12 hectares,
:09:56. > :09:59.it is actually quite helpful to see how many football pitches or how
:10:00. > :10:05.many bits of Wales or whatever area is often used that relates to.
:10:06. > :10:11.In many aspects of measurement, if you cannot bring that analogy
:10:12. > :10:14.so that people can visualise it, it is very difficult if they are not
:10:15. > :10:19.working all the time with measures of area, for example.
:10:20. > :10:22.It is interesting that after the Autumn Statement,
:10:23. > :10:26.we had complaints that the BBC described George Osborne as lucky
:10:27. > :10:30.and that this was biased and of course you are an economic
:10:31. > :10:34.data expert and you used the word lucky to talk about the statistics.
:10:35. > :10:41.What is your view on how data issues are reported and do you have
:10:42. > :10:42.concerns that sometimes they are misreported?
:10:43. > :10:48.The forecast changed a tiny bit and in a way it was helpful
:10:49. > :10:51.it was a little bit so if I have concern about the way
:10:52. > :10:54.it was reported it was reported as a much bigger thing than it
:10:55. > :10:56.actually was and that is partly because the Chancellor talked
:10:57. > :11:00.about ?27 billion, that's a big number but it was cumulative over
:11:01. > :11:03.seven years and by the end of that period it was ?4 billion.
:11:04. > :11:08.Out of ?800 billion of spending, that is tiny.
:11:09. > :11:11.We'll look out for that review for the BBC Trust which will be
:11:12. > :11:18.Thank you for all of your comments this week.
:11:19. > :11:21.If you want to share your opinions on BBC news and current affairs
:11:22. > :11:28.or even appear on the programme, you can call us or email us.
:11:29. > :11:40.You can find us on Twitter and have a look at our website.
:11:41. > :11:46.We will be back to hear your thoughts again next week.