02/09/2016 Newswatch


02/09/2016

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This week, did BBC News win a gold medal for its

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Hello and welcome to Newswatch with me Samira Ahmed.

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Coming up: Looking back at the event which dominated news

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Yes, there were gold medals galore for our competitors in Rio,

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but was BBC News coverage of the Olympics quite

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First, the fallout from the Brexit vote in June's referendum continues

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On Wednesday Daniel Sandford reported for the BBC News at Six

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on the murder of a Polish man in Essex.

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The fear is that this was a frenzied, racist attack

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While detectives are not ruling it out it may be that Arek Jozwik

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wasn't targeted because of his race, but simply because he was there

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when a group of youths was looking for trouble.

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A number of viewers reacted in a way described here by Chris Wilkins.

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On Sunday, BBC One news bulletins marked 100 years since the founding

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of the coastal Marine force which began as a fleet of high-speed

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torpedo boats in the First World War and sank over 500 enemy

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They first fired up in 1916, were the idea

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They were just 50 feet long and carried one or two torpedoes.

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Enough to hit large enemy ships then escape at high speed.

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Unfortunately, the archive footage of the explosion there was not

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a British torpedo hitting a large enemy ship, as a couple

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of eagle-eyed viewers spotted, as John Bryant wrote:

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And now, as they say, for something completely different.

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On Wednesday morning Breakfast showed some rather striking footage.

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Explain what this is, this is a professional unicyclist.

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Malcolm Thomas thought showing that was:

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Now, for many the highlights of the their summer television

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viewing would have been the triumphs of Usain Bolt and Mo Farah

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on the track, Laura Trott and Jason Kenny in the velodrome,

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or Britain's women on the hockey pitch.

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All gripping stuff, but what else was there on the box?

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Well, there were BBC One's news bulletins and the news channel.

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But for 16 days in August they, too, had a distinctly Olympic flavour.

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Hello, this is Breakfast with Louise MInchin and Charlie...

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-- Hello, this is Breakfast with Louise Minchin and Charlie...

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For the duration of the Olympic Games BBC Breakfast reinvented

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itself as Olympic Breakfast with many of the big events

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happening overnight it was the first opportunity for most of us to catch

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But there was also plenty of reaction and background material.

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Too much for Kathryn Coury who wrote:

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to see the race, but a bit more non-sporting news.

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British success soon started, of course, but a couple of days

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later Carol Mabbutt had this reaction to the news at six:

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And here's Bill Dickie on the following day:

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On the 15th of August, Grant Privett echoed that by adding:

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And on August 21st we receive this tweet:

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Well, to discuss this I'm joined in the studio by viewer

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and the editor of the BBC six and ten o'clock news,

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Paul Royle, and in our Cambridge studio is another

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Cathy, first, what was your concern about the Olympics

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The amount of time that was devoted to it.

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And also, that it seemed to become the prime focus of all news that

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It almost seemed as though the rest of the national and international

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news sort of got lumped into other news, you know,

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for about ten minutes onto the end of the Olympics.

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And then reverting back to the Olympics afterwards.

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I just felt that when I switch on the news that is what I

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I want to see the whole of the news, not just a repeat of what I've

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Tim, what about you, adding to what Cathy said.

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I very much agree with what Cathy has said.

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My concern was that the news bulletins seemed to be dominated

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Particularly given the BBC was providing virtually wall-to-wall

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coverage of the Olympics in any case, I didn't really think

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it was necessary for the news bulletins to be dominated

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by the coverage of the Olympics in the way that they were at

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the expense of other important news coverage.

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For instance, you sometimes had to wait ten or 15 minutes before

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you got onto any other items of news at all.

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Paul, this is the general feeling, the Olympics people

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were happy to see coverage, there were lots of great stories,

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but the disproportion and particularly the sense that

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you got ten minutes of Olympic pride and then suddenly a couple

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of minutes of Aleppo just stuck in in a tiny amount.

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Burst, the Olympics is a global event. -- first. Once every four

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years. There is a huge amount of audience interest in the Olympics.

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In this case, from Team GB's sporting performance all the way to

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issues around Rio, Brazil, tickets, the Paralympics afterwards, and so

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on, there were a number of stories and news attached to the Olympics. I

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would reject this idea that are the news wasn't covered, or we weren't

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thinking about other news when Aleppo should be the lead story, the

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chlorine gas attack, for example, it was the lead story on the ten

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o'clock news. We covered international and domestic stories

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in the same way as... They were squeezed, work today, within shorter

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bulletins often. On a number of occasions there was less airtime but

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always with the proviso that on any given day, and we looked at this and

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thought hard about this every day, on any given day if there was

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additional stories or news and we needed to include it in the

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bulletins, or we thought we should, we would extend the programmes. That

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was always the role we carried through the whole Olympic Games.

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Cathy, you had an example of a specific story, I think it was the

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Labour leadership debate getting interrupted by Olympics. Can you

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tell us about that. Yes. I was additionally frustrated by having

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taken time out of my day I specifically wanted to spend time

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watching the Labour leadership debate. Everybody was introduced.

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Then they said, right, before we do all that we are just going to go

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back and find out about the Olympics. And we had another, oh, it

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must have been a five, ten minute report about what was going on in

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Rio again with all of the same clips we'd already seen many times that

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morning. One of the things you raised, ten, was just how far it was

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cheerleading the British side all the way in this coverage. That is to

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some extent true. They concentrated, it seemed to me, on the successes of

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Team GB. Apart from Usain Bolt, or Michael Phelps, hardly anyone else

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got a mention at all. Also, even when there wasn't a medal for Team

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GB, you then had speculation about who might get a medal in the future.

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I wouldn't have said that was news. There are two things viewers would

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like the news teams to rethink. The proportion of the coverage but also

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the accusation made just now by ten that perhaps there was a bit too

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much cheerleading and not enough impartial coverage of who were the

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most important athlete at Rio, and not so much on just British

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prospects. Again, that is always a challenge. It was in 2012, as well.

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Team GB had an amazing Rio games. Second in the world. 67 medals. At

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the same time we covered stories about other countries, around other

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athletes, Michael Phelps, said mobiles, other athletes who broke

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records, we covered the controversies in the games, weather

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it was the questions over Castres amend your questions around the

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Paralympics. -- Simone Biles. On the night the Team GB hockey team won

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that with medal, the top story on the ten o'clock news which followed

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was about the problems of the funding to the Paralympics. --

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Caster Semenya. A lot of the audience were appreciative of com

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and we were getting big audiences into news programmes and news

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coverage. That was part of it. It was a challenge. I'm not disputing

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that. I accept there would be some frustration if you are expecting one

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thing and you have to wait a bit because there are some Olympics you

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feel you've already seen. Thank you all. And that's all from us. Thank

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you for all of your comments this week. If you would like to share

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your opinions, or even appear on the programme, you can call us on:

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We will be back to hear your thoughts about BBC News coverage

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again next week. Goodbye.

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