:00:00. > :00:00.Coming up at 10pm, Sophie will be here with a full round-up of the
:00:00. > :00:10.news. First it is time for news watch.
:00:11. > :00:12.Hello and welcome to Newswatch, with me, Samira Ahmed.
:00:13. > :00:16.After years of Newswatch complaints about the cost
:00:17. > :00:18.of sending news presenters out to foreign locations,
:00:19. > :00:24.And is coverage of the US presidential campaign as edifying
:00:25. > :00:36.First, the extent of coverage of the Olympics on news programmes
:00:37. > :00:39.and bulletins caused some consternation back over the summer
:00:40. > :00:42.and that issue was back on Monday when a parade of Britain's Olympians
:00:43. > :00:45.and Paralympians took place in Manchester.
:00:46. > :00:55.Again we sort of take it for granted now, but it is so so difficult
:00:56. > :00:59.and Rebecca Adlington is a multiple medal winner.
:01:00. > :01:03.When you look at what athletes do in other disciplines, you must have
:01:04. > :01:06.Every single athlete, even the ones that aren't here today.
:01:07. > :01:10.Obviously some of the athletes have decided just to go to the London
:01:11. > :01:12.one, but it is like every single person has their own
:01:13. > :01:17.There was more than two hours of that, broadcast not just
:01:18. > :01:21.on the news channel but also in a special programme on BBC One.
:01:22. > :01:25.Some viewers wondered if all that airtime was justified,
:01:26. > :01:30.including one who left us this telephone message.
:01:31. > :01:34.I would just like to show my disgust at the BBC's simulcasting once again
:01:35. > :01:41.I do not think that my licence fee should be
:01:42. > :01:50.Either have it on BBC One or on the news channel,
:01:51. > :01:54.or better still hit it on the red button.
:01:55. > :01:57.It is not news and it certainly should not be taking over two
:01:58. > :02:05.After the first US presidential debate, we discussed on this
:02:06. > :02:08.programme if too much coverage had been devoted to the insults
:02:09. > :02:10.and bickering exchanges between Donald Trump
:02:11. > :02:17.This week saw the third and final TV debate between the two candidates.
:02:18. > :02:23.The Russians have engaged in cyber attacks against
:02:24. > :02:34.She has no idea if it is Russia, China...
:02:35. > :02:41.Then Donald Trump was questioned about the procession of women that
:02:42. > :02:43.have come forward to accuse him of sexual assault.
:02:44. > :02:48.These women, the woman on the plane, I think they want either fame
:02:49. > :02:57.Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger.
:02:58. > :03:17.Last Sunday, Trinity Gay, the 15-year-old daughter
:03:18. > :03:21.of Tyson Gay, was killed after an exchange of gunfire
:03:22. > :03:26.One aspect of the BBC's reporting of her death annoyed
:03:27. > :03:29.a number of viewers, including Grace Bradley who left
:03:30. > :03:34.I'm just reading on the BBC website that he tested positive for a banned
:03:35. > :03:35.substance and was banned from the competition
:03:36. > :03:49.You think, the man's daughter has been murdered,
:03:50. > :03:58.what relevance does that got to the coverage of that story?
:03:59. > :04:00.I'm horrified by the insensitivity of the BBC in this case.
:04:01. > :04:04.When a major international story breaks, we've become used to the big
:04:05. > :04:12.beasts of TV news being dispatched to present programmes from abroad.
:04:13. > :04:18.like the fall of Berlin Wall or the release of Nelson Mandela
:04:19. > :04:21.from prison, but it has become much more frequent.
:04:22. > :04:24.Newswatch viewers have often objected to what they see as a waste
:04:25. > :04:27.of licence fee money, for instance just over a year ago
:04:28. > :04:29.when three BBC One anchors were sent to three different
:04:30. > :04:33.Were the migration crisis has brought more scenes
:04:34. > :04:36.A very good evening to you from Munich's
:04:37. > :04:38.main railway station, where throughout the day hundreds
:04:39. > :04:42.of migrants and refugees have been arriving from Austria.
:04:43. > :04:45.Tonight at ten we are live in Lebanon, just three miles
:04:46. > :04:54.from the Syrian border in one of the thousands of refugee camps.
:04:55. > :04:56.BBC's bosses would come on Newswatch insisting that such
:04:57. > :04:58.deployments added value to news bulletins, while many
:04:59. > :05:00.viewers complained that they were just profligate
:05:01. > :05:06.windowdressing with money wasted flying presenters across the world
:05:07. > :05:18.mainly to read links that could've easily be done in the studio.
:05:19. > :05:20.One of those viewers posted this comment on Thursday:
:05:21. > :05:26.There has also been criticism of the number of BBC reporters sent
:05:27. > :05:28.to cover foreign stories, with tales of
:05:29. > :05:30.corporation journalists battling for positions with each
:05:31. > :05:31.other at news conferences around the world.
:05:32. > :05:34.So prompted by the need to save money, the BBC has this week
:05:35. > :05:36.announced new restrictions on the deployment of reporters
:05:37. > :05:49.A move greeted by Max Johnson as being:
:05:50. > :05:51.Jonathan Munro is with me now to explain the changes.
:05:52. > :05:54.Jonathan, what exactly are you proposing change
:05:55. > :06:08.I think the summary is we are trying to raise the bar on the judgments
:06:09. > :06:10.made about the deployment of numbers of people overall
:06:11. > :06:13.and presenters and the teams that work with presenters in particular.
:06:14. > :06:16.Obviously sending people away is a big expense for the BBC
:06:17. > :06:19.and secondly when we spend that money we want to ensure
:06:20. > :06:21.we are spending it on generating meaningful content and obviously
:06:22. > :06:24.that involves sending lots of people on big stories,
:06:25. > :06:26.including presenters, and we will carry on doing that.
:06:27. > :06:29.But we will not do it as often and we will not do it
:06:30. > :06:33.Can you give examples of the kinds of stories you would not send
:06:34. > :06:43.I think the best example recently and we've used this
:06:44. > :06:47.when briefing our own staff is the summit David Cameron went
:06:48. > :06:50.to when he was still Prime Minister just after the vote to leave
:06:51. > :06:54.You may remember he went for dinner in Brussels to the summit,
:06:55. > :06:57.he was there for a few hours, it was contained in the same
:06:58. > :07:00.building, we knew it was called to happen in advance,
:07:01. > :07:03.We ended up with 17 English-language reporters, correspondence
:07:04. > :07:05.and presenters in Brussels carrying that summit.
:07:06. > :07:08.I think that falls below the bar I'm trying to raise, otherwise,
:07:09. > :07:12.But on a big breaking story, like the attacks in Paris a year
:07:13. > :07:15.ago, you do need a volume of people to make products as very
:07:16. > :07:18.as breakfast in the morning through to Newsnight in the evening,
:07:19. > :07:20.the World Service is a major consumer of global news,
:07:21. > :07:24.so I don't want anyone to get the impression that we are no longer
:07:25. > :07:27.deploying on foreign news, we absolutely are, we're going to be
:07:28. > :07:28.more careful and more restrictive about the numbers.
:07:29. > :07:36.Viewers have been complaining for years the presenters
:07:37. > :07:41.It sounds like you're admitting the BBC has
:07:42. > :07:46.Presenters can add a lot but they don't always add
:07:47. > :07:50.I think, for example, if you're going to the location
:07:51. > :07:52.of this story and you are doing live interviews with someone who's
:07:53. > :07:55.involved in a story, you're calling someone to account,
:07:56. > :07:57.you are analysing the events, you know better than anyone that
:07:58. > :08:00.you only do that effectively if you can look at the whites
:08:01. > :08:04.of the eyes of the people you're talking to, and it is real added
:08:05. > :08:08.If, on the other hand, you're going merely to interview
:08:09. > :08:10.other BBC people who are already there, that appeals to me
:08:11. > :08:14.On reporters, though, what is the plan, because the BBC
:08:15. > :08:16.has talked about avoiding duplication, but it is
:08:17. > :08:18.understandable that different programmes have got their
:08:19. > :08:20.own take on the story for the different audiences?
:08:21. > :08:23.Those audiences are really varied in different and we will absolutely
:08:24. > :08:25.continue to be conscious of that will be sent.
:08:26. > :08:28.So in a sense, this becomes an issue about the numbers, how many people
:08:29. > :08:30.physically getting on a plane, for example, one of breaking
:08:31. > :08:34.There comes a point where the number of reporters actually becomes
:08:35. > :08:36.a problem on a story because you have too many
:08:37. > :08:42.people there to manage, but you want a distinctive take
:08:43. > :08:53.For example a programme of late night this analysis is different
:08:54. > :08:55.from a breaking news story in the morning.
:08:56. > :08:57.The demands of rolling news are different from the
:08:58. > :09:00.Radio is different from television and so on.
:09:01. > :09:03.But we can do better at making some of that distinctive journalism
:09:04. > :09:07.You must have thought to a model, for example, of how many TV
:09:08. > :09:09.reporters would be sent, presuming there is a correspondent
:09:10. > :09:12.on location in a foreign country to supplement that for TV outlets?
:09:13. > :09:15.We are lucky to have correspondence around the world in lots of places.
:09:16. > :09:17.They are the starting place, and the nearest person
:09:18. > :09:20.there is probably the expert and what we are dealing with.
:09:21. > :09:23.We also have a lot of people who work for the non-English
:09:24. > :09:25.language services at the BBC, but whose English is excellent
:09:26. > :09:28.and we use them more and more on our services the UK.
:09:29. > :09:30.Putting a model in place is really hard.
:09:31. > :09:33.No single story is the same as any other story, so it
:09:34. > :09:35.depends on time zones, it depends on other news
:09:36. > :09:38.that is happening in the world, it will depend on whether it's
:09:39. > :09:41.a story that has actually happened and is over or if it
:09:42. > :09:43.has just happened this would move any further,
:09:44. > :09:45.or whether it is quite a dynamic situation,
:09:46. > :09:47.including whether it is a situation where safety is an issue.
:09:48. > :09:50.So all those factors make it difficult to come up
:09:51. > :09:55.Is there a danger of the BBC not being there for those landmark
:09:56. > :09:58.Things like Newsnight which are late at night, Jeremy Paxman
:09:59. > :10:01.being there when the Berlin Wall fell, is that the kind of thing
:10:02. > :10:03.that is potentially under threat because of costs?
:10:04. > :10:07.The Berlin Wall falling was one of the iconic news stories
:10:08. > :10:09.of the last few years, last few decades.
:10:10. > :10:12.They come around every so often and when they come around we're
:10:13. > :10:14.going to be absolutely resource of those stories.
:10:15. > :10:17.We may have one and a couple of weeks when the Americans vote
:10:18. > :10:19.on the new president, that is the next big thing
:10:20. > :10:23.I don't think I'm giving away anything too confidential to say
:10:24. > :10:25.that Newsnight will be there, lock stock and barrel and reporting
:10:26. > :10:29.It is a very important story, a defining story, potentially,
:10:30. > :10:31.in the politics and diplomacy of the world.
:10:32. > :10:34.Finally, BBC One's lunchtime bulletin included news of a freak
:10:35. > :10:36.accident in which Harry Redknapp's wife Sandra was injured
:10:37. > :10:39.when she was dragged along the road by a car driven
:10:40. > :10:42.Duncan Kennedy was live at the couple's home.
:10:43. > :10:44.Obviously a very dramatic moment for Harry and Sandra,
:10:45. > :10:49.It was from this house that the couple went
:10:50. > :10:52.to do their shopping trip yesterday and when this tragic
:10:53. > :10:56.After the report that followed, a number of viewers got in touch
:10:57. > :10:58.with us about that item, with Brian Winter describing himself
:10:59. > :11:32.That is all from us, thank you for your comments this week.
:11:33. > :11:35.If you want to share your opinions on BBC News and current affairs
:11:36. > :11:38.and appear on the programme you can call us or e-mail us
:11:39. > :11:48.You can find us on Twitter and do you look at previous
:11:49. > :11:58.We will be to hear your thoughts about BBC News