28/10/2016 Newswatch

At ten o'clock, Rita will be here with a full round-up of the day's

news, but first, Newswatch. Hello, and welcome to Newswatch

with me, Samira Ahmed. Coming up, how to be impartial

and objective in reporting an issue as emotive as the closure

of the Calais migrants' camp. And in the days of catch-up viewing,

should the News at Ten have done a sports-style spoiler warning

about the winner of First, it took a long time to arrive

but, when the decision came from the government to support

an expansion of Heathrow Airport, it was reported and discussed

extensively on BBC News. Now, a third runway here at Heathrow

is a long way away from being Political, planning,

legal, environmental opposition is inevitable

in the coming months but, in arriving at today's decision,

they've achieved what previous But was the scale of the coverage

on BBC News warranted? Since it started to hit the news

headlines in the summer of last year, the issue of how to treat

the huge number of migrants travelling into and across Europe

has proved a difficult one This week, it again attracted

the attention of Newswatch viewers with the clearing of the so-called

Jungle camp in Calais and the transportation of over 200

minors from there into the UK. Here are clips from two reports

shown on Monday night's bulletins from John Kay in Devon, and first,

Lucy Williamson in Calais. Among those joining the queues today

were four siblings from Afghanistan, clinging

to an English-speaking friend. Their mother had asked him to take

her children and make their case Four small lives among the thousands

saying goodbye to Calais, unsure of what the future

has in store. We are a local, small,

close-knit community But this man told me many locals

are angry that the child migrants have been brought

here without public consultation. We can't look after our own so why

look after everybody else? Apparently, they won't be

here for very long, they will be Wednesday, I was told,

but that's two days too long. That view and its appearance on BBC

news concerned some viewers. But most of those who contacted us

felt the BBC was being overly sympathetic towards the migrants.

One describing himself as a disillusioned proud Brit e-mailed...

Toby Castle is with me now. The majority of the comments that we got

is that the BBC has an instinctive liberal bias on the side of

migrants, including economic migrants. Your queue was proved that

there are two very differing views of the BBC's coverage and that

reflects the fact we're getting it right. We have a responsibility to

provide balanced coverage of the very pop complicated story, to give

our viewers the context around what is going on by providing eyewitness

journalism on the ground. The eyewitness stuff is part of what

people are concerned about. A lot of coverage they feel is very personal

stories. Especially with young children. But we do not happen. Ray.

A handful of cases may simplify the bigger issue or the dealing with the

bigger political issue. It is a story which you could say is easy to

oversimplify. In our coverage and what we have done across television,

radio and online, it is an attempt to pick up personal stories and on

occasion challenged the stories and ask individuals questions about the

decisions they have made and how they ended up in the camp in Calais

and their decisions not to be resettled around France and that

they want to stay and still attempt to get across the channel into the

UK. The Home Office are somebody else we want to challenge. We want

to challenge one of your comments of one of your viewers who was

criticising us listening to the refugee support groups and

charities. I would say, if you are watching and listening to our

coverage, we have challenge them on some of their views and some of

their language has been very emotive and strong. We have challenged that.

What you have highlighted there is how divided viewer reaction is on

this. People either feel BBC challenges to emotional and

unquestioning, and those who feel worried about xenophobia attitudes

getting airtime. It is a line we have to talk about and consider.

Editorial discussions within programmes in output and

correspondence on the ground. It is healthy for a newsroom in editorial

meetings to have conversations about the way we are covering stories and

the use of language, how we refer to unaccompanied minors, we use that

term in some of our reporting, and sometimes we hear about NGOs talking

about children. But then you have government MPs referring to these

individuals as, they did not look like children. Is there a knee jerk

liberal reaction to that, to want to the underside of being generous? We

have got to question all sides. We have to be the independent observer

in this and challenge each group. I think we have talked in editorial

meetings about challenging those that have found themselves in the

camp. But the government are at the moment having to challenge those

individuals and checking their status and what they are telling

them. We're challenging the government. On our audience's Behar.

The biggest row was led by newspapers demanding dental checks

because of claims of adult men claiming to be child refugees. How

did the BBC approach that issue? The MP that raised dental checks, those

were public comments. Some of the images we saw on the front page of

the newspapers showed individuals that, on the face of it, did not

look like children. I think in our coverage, we looked at that, we

spoke to David Davis, and we did question those groups and the

government on something that our audience, your comments there,

referred specifically to, that there are individuals that may be taking

advantage of our hospitality and we need to challenge everybody involved

in the story on that. Do let us know your thoughts on the BBC's coverage

of migration or any aspect of BBC News. The highlight of many people's

television viewing this week came on BBC One on Wednesday night and for

those who have not watched the Great British Bake Off, a headline gave

away the result. Candies! The Baker from Bedfordshire wins the Crown in

the final Great British Bake Off on the BBC. Although the BBC's news

website and breakfast included spoiler alerts for those who had not

watched the programme and did not want to know who had won, that

headline level the scores of you was frustrated and angry.

With a week and a half to go into the presidential election in the

United States, opinion polls suggest Hillary Clinton is pulling away from

Donald Trump with all other candidates trailing far behind. What

other candidates, you might ask? There is actually quite a few people

standing to be President, mostly independents but also the Green

Party and Gary Johnson from the Libertarian party, 15% of the

electorate are considering voting for one of them, so why have we not

heard more about the third-party contenders? Dan Curry e-mailed us to

make that point. There is a long history of reporters

being upstaged by something or someone in the background of the

shot and the Downing Street cat, Larry, has a history of hogging

attention. Larry was added again on Monday while Norman Smith was

discussing a meeting the Prime Minister had just had. Theresa May

did not want to stand up in row with Nicolas Di adjourned. She has gone

enough on her plate. Luckily, it was on the news channel. -- Nicola

Sturgeon. Who are all these people? Why would they not just let him in?

He made it through the door eventually but not before he had

thoroughly distracted Edward Stone. Thank you for your comments this

week. If you want to share your opinions or even appear on the

programme, you can call us. Or you can e-mail us. You can find us on

Twitter and do have a look at our website. We will be back to hear

your thoughts about BBC News coverage again next week.