17/06/2016 Newswatch

killed outside of her constituency office yesterday. We will have all

of the latest News at 10pm with Fiona Bruce but first it is time for

news watch. Hello and welcome to news watch,

coming up, should the BBC have been braver during the referendum

campaign in stating which claims by both sides are true and which are

false? And of all allegations against Cliff Richard of sexual

abuse being dropped, should the BBC apologise how it covered the raid on

his house two years ago. Campaigning for EU referendum was suspended on

Thursday by news which shocked Westminster and those beyond. Good

evening and welcome to BBC News, the Labour MP Jo Cox has died after

being stabbed and shot in a street in her constituency in west

Yorkshire. She was 41 and leaves a husband and two young children. Bill

Parker contacted us with this message.

There had been more shocking news last weekend when 49 people were

killed by a gunman in a gay nightclub in the American city of

Orlando in Florida. As is often the case with such mass murders, the BBC

reporting raised a number of issues. Mr MacCormack objected to a list of

the worst mass shootings in the US of the last 25 years.

Richard Tamblyn had a different concern:

in August 20 14th South Yorkshire Police gave the BBC details of a

raid they were conducting on the home of Sir Cliff Richard because of

allegations they had received about historical sex abuse. BBC news crews

including one in a helicopter, filmed it and broadcasted live,

leading to numerous complaints of trial by news. The CPS said that Sir

Cliff Richard would face no more actions, facing further criticism,

Richard Wall asked: last year an independent

investigation concluded that South Yorkshire Police should not have

told the BBC about the search, and the force said on Thursday:

meanwhile the BBC released this statement:

we have been receiving plenty of correspondence about coverage of

Euro 2016 football championships but in reaction to the violence on

French streets. Here is the reporter. It is about midnight now

and the England fans have been followed around by the French riot

police, the area is thick with tear gas, you can smell it can taste it,

but they are coming out from all different angles, you have got a

line of riot police here and another one here and they are trying to keep

the fans on the move, it is not a good night for English supporters,

it doesn't put them in a good light at. White slowly e-mailed us on

Thursday with these comments: -- Chloe e-mailed us on Thursday with

these comments: it has been a long and sometimes tense referendum

campaign that has presented BBC News with a number of challenges, the

task has been to engage a public that was not always riveted by the

detail, to bring a clarity from confusion and disinformation and to

do it all in a balanced and impartial way, but in trying to

achieve the latter has the BBC distorted the debate? There will be

a hole in the public finances, chances from two different party

saying taxes have to go up, spending will be cut. That is the reality. We

have been told that a one-way ticket out of the EU would be economic

slowdown, staying in would-be migrants in the millions. Today's

scary morning, vote for the EU and you will pay for it at holiday time.

It is something that each country could veto. Mare, I do not think

that the EU, is going to keep Turkey out. At the moment, ?350 million a

week go to Brussels and I think that we ought to decide ourselves how we

spend that money and I would suggest that we spend it on the NHS. No

sooner has an alleged fact been put out by one side than the other side

has poured scorn on it. In such circumstances, is it the BBC's

responsibility to have both sides of the story with equal prominence or

to make a judgment about what the truth of the matter is and ignore

what it deems to be. David thinks that we have got it wrong.

The league side have pointed out that the predictions of

international institutions do not always turn out to be correct. The

particular point I wanted to make was about the item where 13 Nobel

Prize winners have signed a letter saying that it would be better to

stay in the EU. And the same amount of coverage was given to that as to

the one Nobel Prize winner who said that was not the case. I think that

the numbers and the proportionality, 13-1, should be made much clearer.

My other point is also linked to proportionality, which is to do with

the amounts of money being bandied around. We know that the 350 million

per week number is not true, which I would like followed up on, but apart

from that, that amount of money compared to the British GDP is

really a small percentage and I think that is never put across. I

think it would be ready helpful for the BBC to be pointing out what is

an expert prediction, what people on the ground are saying and what is an

emotional outburst. Again the league side has defended its use of the

?350 million a week figure, and has challenged some of the facts and

figures of the remains side, clearly the truth can be hard to get to and

the BBC has tried to do so through the reality check online which has

also featured on broadcast checks. But should this brave and robust

approach of unpicking facts from Battersea be used more widely on BBC

television? -- from Battersea. I think the reality check is very

helpful, because it does provide a correcting element to both sides of

the argument. The problem is that the BBC needs to be willing to

apply, a degree of editing to the information that it is processing. I

know this is difficult because you have got editorial deadlines to

meet. There are times when, you will be confronted with facts, which may

be you would want to question, and because nobody else can do it, it is

the BBC's job. The classic one is the weekly spend 350 million, which

has been open to dispute. Every time the figure is quoted, it is an

opportunity for the people quoting to repeat the misleading figure.

They will argue that it is not misleading, and therefore, they are

entitled to say it. But I would prefer it if they had had that

argument with you at the BBC first before it went out onto the

airwaves. We hoped to discuss some of these points with the

representatives of BBC news but that proved impossible, instead they gave

this statement. Finally, for those who haven't

noticed, the DJ Hayden music producer Calvin Harris is no longer

following his ex-girlfriend on Twitter after images of her kissing

somebody else online. Why do I mention this? Because it featured on

the BBC News website. This reaction from Tom Harris.

Thanks for all of your comments, we're off and next week in the

aftermath of the referendum vote but we will be back in two weeks' time.

In the meantime, please send us your thoughts.

Do have a look at our website. That is all from us, B will be back to

hear your thoughts in a fortnight. Hello, the weather is turning a bit

quieter for all of us as we head into the weekend and that is good

news after a dramatic week of weather, that has been captured by

how weather watchers. Here is a thunderstorm earlier on in Brackley,

Northamptonshire, you