:00:08. > :00:14.More than five years into the destruction and suffering
:00:15. > :00:17.of the Syrian civil war, are we getting a full picture
:00:18. > :00:22.We speak to the BBC Middle East editor about the challenges
:00:23. > :00:29.of reporting on such a harrowing conflict.
:00:30. > :00:38.Was this the voice of a new Nobel laureate for literature
:00:39. > :00:44.First, it was surprising to hear on Thursday that the top story
:00:45. > :00:58.At least until it became clear was the real subject matter
:00:59. > :01:02.The spread was one of the number of brands withdrawn from the Tesco
:01:03. > :01:10.online site after a dispute over prices with a supplier,
:01:11. > :01:13.Unilever, pointing to the sharp drop in the value of the pound
:01:14. > :01:15.which many attributed to the government permitted that
:01:16. > :01:37.The news last week and was dominated by the release of the video
:01:38. > :01:41.in which Donald Trump boasted that his fame meant he could do
:01:42. > :01:53.Other comments made on that tape by the US presidential candidate
:01:54. > :01:58.were summarised in a way that concerned this viewer.
:01:59. > :02:01.News reports used the terms groping and lewd behaviour.
:02:02. > :02:04.What Donald Trump did was to claim he repeatedly uses his
:02:05. > :02:06.powerful position to harass and assault women.
:02:07. > :02:10.He said he just walked up to them and kissed them or grabbed them.
:02:11. > :02:15.If this were true, it would constitute sexual assault.
:02:16. > :02:18.To say that Trump boasted of sexual assault would
:02:19. > :02:23.To refrain from describing it in those terms is to commit
:02:24. > :02:32.It is to accept a misogynistic linguistic framing and it is to
:02:33. > :02:36.betray victims who need to hear that there is recourse in law
:02:37. > :02:41.The announcement on Thursday that Bob Dylan had won the Nobel Prize
:02:42. > :02:46.for literature caused much discussion.
:02:47. > :02:50.After watching the news at six, some viewers were wondering
:02:51. > :03:02.Bob Dylan, like Shakespeare, has the knack for coining a phrase
:03:03. > :03:04.which becomes part of everyday speech.
:03:05. > :03:07.He has his own sense of meter and rhyme, metaphor and meaning.
:03:08. > :03:10.He is a contemporary chronicler, storyteller, moralist and poet whose
:03:11. > :03:16.work and words have changed attitudes and lives.
:03:17. > :03:19.Now, his vocal style is not exactly classical but those who sing
:03:20. > :03:30.No, because as one person on Twitter put it, the last 20 seconds
:03:31. > :03:33.on the Nobel Prize featured footage of not the man himself
:03:34. > :03:48.BBC News held their hands up to the mystic to us at the end
:03:49. > :03:51.of the Bob Dylan package some archive footage which had been
:03:52. > :03:52.incorrectly labelled as him was used.
:03:53. > :03:55.This was a production error which was rectified
:03:56. > :04:08.Now, since the ceasefire in Syria broke down,
:04:09. > :04:10.the second city, Aleppo, has been under intense bombardment.
:04:11. > :04:16.Political and diplomatic arguments have raged
:04:17. > :04:19.over who bears responsibility and how it might be resolved.
:04:20. > :04:21.After five years of war, a solution seems further
:04:22. > :04:28.During the recent pause in fighting, our Middle East editor,
:04:29. > :04:32.I couldn't cross into eastern Aleppo.
:04:33. > :04:35.This was close to the front line in the old city,
:04:36. > :04:38.a tangle of mediaeval alleys that used to be the greatest souk
:04:39. > :04:42.The old city was an extraordinary human creation, now
:04:43. > :04:54.This child was leaving hospital for his new life.
:04:55. > :04:57.It will be without his arm, and without his four cousins
:04:58. > :05:08.For reasons of logistics and safety, media access to Syria has been
:05:09. > :05:10.irregular and difficult and some viewers have told us
:05:11. > :05:14.they are concerned that the BBC is providing an incomplete or even
:05:15. > :06:08.Well, to discuss the challenges of reporting from Syria,
:06:09. > :06:10.Jeremy Bowen joins us now from Cardiff.
:06:11. > :06:14.Most reports that we get here tend to be from the rebel side.
:06:15. > :06:20.How far do you try to get access to the government side?
:06:21. > :06:24.Most of the reporting I have done since I went after the war started
:06:25. > :06:33.There are basically two ways of getting into Syria
:06:34. > :06:42.One is with a visa and reporting from the government side in the main
:06:43. > :06:45.and the other way in was mainly over the Turkish border
:06:46. > :06:52.That access is almost ceased because it is too dangerous.
:06:53. > :06:54.The chances of running into jihadists who will harm
:06:55. > :07:06.When I report from Syria, I am reporting from
:07:07. > :07:11.The worry I have had is that I have not been able to report
:07:12. > :07:14.from the rebel held side and that when we use pictures from the rebel
:07:15. > :07:18.side it is pictures we have sourced ourselves rather than directly
:07:19. > :07:22.Those are some of the most distressing images.
:07:23. > :07:25.Some viewers are concerned that we are getting a distorted
:07:26. > :07:32.We get this footage coming from the rebel side of casualties.
:07:33. > :07:34.The message being the bombs are being dropped by
:07:35. > :07:40.There are distressing pictures from both sides.
:07:41. > :07:44.In that clip of mine, the wounded boy, he lived
:07:45. > :07:47.in government-held territory and was hurt by a shell that,
:07:48. > :07:50.his family said, came from a place held by the jihadists
:07:51. > :08:02.It is representative, I think, to use pictures of children.
:08:03. > :08:07.They can be more shocking, but war is shocking.
:08:08. > :08:15.There is a difficult issue about what you show.
:08:16. > :08:18.There is also a concern of when you show such distressing
:08:19. > :08:21.images, of viewers feeling hopeless about it, also a fear
:08:22. > :08:27.of the desensitising with this torrent of distressing images.
:08:28. > :08:31.I think it is up to people like myself to report in such a way
:08:32. > :08:36.The argument about how much blood and gore reality to show is one
:08:37. > :08:48.It is a constant discussion, and I have had many discussions over
:08:49. > :08:50.many years from many wars with programme editors
:08:51. > :08:56.Generally speaking, the people in the field want to show more
:08:57. > :08:59.than the people who edit the programmes are prepared to show
:09:00. > :09:02.and in an ideal world you get some sort of a happy medium
:09:03. > :09:11.One other concern we have heard, and I have heard it expressed
:09:12. > :09:14.by former diplomats, is that the introductions to news
:09:15. > :09:25.items about Syria often oversimplify and they talk about rebels
:09:26. > :09:27.versus Assad and Russia, but the reality is more complex
:09:28. > :09:29.with many jihadist groups on the ground.
:09:30. > :09:36.The news should not be about good people versus bad people.
:09:37. > :09:40.An intro gives you a flavour and it is not the whole story.
:09:41. > :09:49.You have to take the whole in more than one piece because I try to look
:09:50. > :09:52.at the number of pieces I have done from one reporting trip rather
:09:53. > :10:00.That is difficult because not everybody watches the news
:10:01. > :10:03.with the same obsessive zeal that journalists do,
:10:04. > :10:08.but you cannot get everything in every piece.
:10:09. > :10:12.What I try to do, and this is the challenge of TV reporting,
:10:13. > :10:18.I try to do a story which has got something in it with someone
:10:19. > :10:21.who is interested but doesn't know much will get and learn something
:10:22. > :10:34.And will also, at the same time, have something in it that the top
:10:35. > :10:37.diplomat at the Foreign Office who deals with the Middle East might
:10:38. > :10:49.You have to be careful with your words and good interviews
:10:50. > :10:52.and good sound, and sometimes we succeed and sometimes we don't.
:10:53. > :11:00.Finally, when presenters read the headlines on a busy news
:11:01. > :11:04.programme they hope and assume that the pictures being run
:11:05. > :11:07.by the studio gallery bear relation to the words they are saying.
:11:08. > :11:09.It doesn't always work out like that.
:11:10. > :11:14.It is half six, it is Friday the 14th of October.
:11:15. > :11:16.We will be joined by Scottish First Minister Nicola
:11:17. > :11:19.Sturgeon and we will talk to her about plans for a second
:11:20. > :11:25.We have clearly run the wrong pictures over
:11:26. > :11:39.We will be talking later about the escaped
:11:40. > :11:52.Many of those who spotted that posted to Twitter:
:11:53. > :11:57.If you want to share your opinions on BBC News and current affairs
:11:58. > :12:04.You can find us on Twitter and do have a look at our website.
:12:05. > :12:10.We will be back to hear your thoughts about BBC News
:12:11. > :12:24.An autumnal week all in all across the UK.
:12:25. > :12:29.Mainly due to easterly winds which we have had.
:12:30. > :12:35.We will start to see some changes over the weekend.