04/03/2016 Newswatch

The headlines: Brazilian police have questioned the former president Da

Silva as part of their corruption investigation. He described it as a

date of this respect for democracy. Investigators are testing a knife to

see whether it could be linked in the killing of the ex-wife of temp

two and her friend. American researchers say they have

discovered hide the Zika virus could damage the brain of unborn babies.

Facebook is to change its tax arrangements in the UK. In 2,000

Ford team the company paid only 6500 dollars in Corporation Tax. At ten

o'clock Sophie will be here with a full round-up of the day's news.

First, Newswatch. Hello and welcome to Newswatch

with me, Samira Ahmed. Coming up on this programme: Awards

were being given out in Hollywood on Sunday night, but the BBC's Oscar

coverage receives brickbats, And how did this hoaxster get

on The Victoria Derbyshire Show with a tale of misbehaviour

on a flight he claimed It was lights, camera,

action for BBC News on Monday morning as the public woke up

to details of the 88th Academy Awards ceremony,

held the night before in Los Breakfast featured several

appearances of entertainment correspondent Lizo Mzimba

in Hollywood, with a variety of guests and a studio

discussion back home. We will come back to

the films in a minute. The News Channel continued

the Oscars coverage at nine o'clock with the Academy Awards

leading its bulletin, to the disgruntlement

of this viewer. Why was the first six minutes

of the News Channel dedicated to the very shallow

reporting of the Oscars? Yes, they should be reported at not

as head of the news. At 9:30am there followed a 30 minute

Oscar special with discussion And there is much more on the BBC

News website about all of that, about the fashion, the films,

the winners and losers. There was indeed much more

about all of that on the BBC News website and the News Channel

and BBC One bulletins continued to feature the subject

throughout the day, Opinion was divided with Paddy Kelly

writing: I thought the coverage But there was a minority view among

those who contacted us, more typical was this

from Iain Glen. So, what place should the Oscars

are any entertainment story have And in the lead up to the renewal

of the Royal Charter, should editors listen

to Culture Secretary John Whittingdale, who may have been

thinking of coverage of this kind when he argued this week

that the soft news element of the BBC online services

is of limited public value. Sam Taylor oversees BBC News's UK

onkline operation and the BBC Sam, John Whittingdale was singling

out online for too much soft news, as he saw it, about celebrities

at the expense of this kind of core mission of news being

about information and public value. A lot of our viewers complaining

to Newswatch this week seemed to feel the same after seeing

the Oscars coverage. I think it is fair to say, isn't it,

that the Oscars is not in that part It is one of the biggest

entertainment stories of the year. It is obviously got people talking

here and around the world and this year it was a very strong story -

the success of Leonardo DiCaprio after many years trying to get

an Oscar, British success, but also this diversity debate,

which was not played out on the fringes of the Oscars,

it was played out on the very floor of the arena with Chris Rock

making so many comments. It was a story, I think

a very strong story, but I think the important thing

to point out is that we handled it in different ways during

the course of the day. Well, that is the point

where we know there was a very big audience interest in finding out

what had happened in the event which had happened

while people were asleep. So, the web story we wrote

about that was the most read news story on the site in the month

of February around the world. News Channel and Breakfast audiences

were higher than average. So, at that point there was a lot

of prominance with the Oscars because we were bringing people up

to speed about a story that clearly As the day progressed,

of course, it moved down our running orders on the One and Six news

on BBC One it was the end item of the programme bringing people up

to speed on a big entertainment So, we did approach it in different

ways, but we did that partly because of the different ways that

people consume the news. In terms of the amount of airtime,

though, particularly in the run-up to it as much as after,

people felt there was an awful lot of standing around looking at a red

carpet and commenting I mean, is that the kind of news

that the BBC News Channel Is that not for other

entertainment channels to do? I think if you are talking

about the element in the morning, there was a very short period really

in the morning where stars are working the red carpet before

and then some of that afterwards, but that's where we got a fantastic

interview on Breakfast with Mark Rylance, one of Britain's

greatest actors who had just That was the breaking

news reaction element. Of course, things

finished pretty quickly. We did our Oscars special at 9.30am

on the News Channel and BBC world News because things had wrapped up,

it was a good point for us to sum everything up, do the story

and move on, which we did. We actually moved on during the day

to look more head on the issues of diversity and some of the more

serious news stories to come out The morning after, then,

it is very big in breakfast News. Nine o'clock, when the News Channel

bulletin gets going, Given that there was the half-hour

special to come at 9.30am, can you see why viewers thought why

did it need to be six minutes at the top of the nine

o'clock bulletin, as well? I think it is worth saying that

that is the only hour in the whole day where the Oscars was the lead

story on the News Channel Derbyshire and Breakfast lead

on the story about NHS recruitment. The News Channel went on to lead

on the trouble at the Nine o'clock is a very short

catch-up news bulletin. We felt it was the peak point

for people who are interested in catching up on the Oscars story

could catch up on it and we just did To be honest, we did it at the same

length we do for any lead story - the video report and a live

with a correspondent and trailled I don't think it was out of kilter,

we actually just wanted to allow people to catch up on the news

at that point and then we brought some other stories before

we came to it at 9.30am. Please, let us know your thoughts

on the role of entertainment stories, or on any aspect of BBC

News. Details of how to contact us

at the end of the programme. Before that, two stories

in the early part of the week dealt with migrants in different parts

of Europe and both attracted Monday's News at Ten reported

on a confrontation between police and migrants near the border

between Greece and Macedonia and, before that, clashes as demolition

teams moved into the camp in Calais What was meant to be a gentle

eviction through encouragement and information became a blunt

exchange of tear gas and rocks By dusk, the battle

was underway again. A second fire in the place someone

yesterday called home. The water cannon brought

in not for the fire, but for the arsonists,

and then tear gas for anyone This is the view from

the Macedonian side. A border guard fires tear gas

directly at the migrants. On the other side of the fence,

the man in the front of the picture in the blue jacket is

hit by that canister. There is panic as the toxic

gas start spreading. A boy staggers from the crush

retching, others collapse Today, on a European border,

children were tear-gassed. Merlin Graham-Paulton

from Gloucester wrote Brenda Taylor was more concerned

about the coverage of Calais, And we received this telephone

message on a similar theme. I was watching the news on 29th

February to see the coverage of the clearance of

the camps in France. It is always seems like

it is on the one side. They were criticising the police

and how they were acting, It just seemed to be

on to the police all the time, but they did not go

on about the other side, the way they were acting, throwing

stones at the police and everything. If you are going to report the news,

don't report it with bias, Well, we put those points to BBC

News and they told us: Finally, the strange

tale of the stag party, the Ryanair flight,

and the prankster. Last Friday, a flight between Luton

and Bratislava was diverted after a group of 12 men became

drunk, rowdy and violent, with passengers saying one

of them exposed himself. BBC News reported the story

and invited anyone on the plane Darius Davis did so and after

a telephone conversation with a journalist was invited

onto The Victoria Derbyshire Show About ten minutes into the flight,

when we were in the air, one of the stag members stole

the trousers, so one of them was exposed and he stood up

and he was being boisterous. Darius Davis later revealed

that he had not actually been on the plane and had made

up his entire testimony as a hoax. In a blog, Davis, who is a comedian,

claimed that at no point did the BBC demand to see proof

that he was on board the flight, expressing his surprise that,

"lazy journalism allowed me While a Twitter user

called Ben posted this. For its part, the BBC had this

to say: Many thanks to all of

those who contributed If you would like to share your

opinions about BBC News and current affairs or appear here

on the programme, do please ring us, e-mail us, post your

thoughts on Twitter. You can watch previous

discussions on our website. Join us again for more

of your thoughts about BBC News Great Britain have won medals at the

Track Cycling World Championships tonight. Andy Murray got the Davis

Cup title defence to a