:00:00. > :00:00.At 10pm we will have a full round-up of the day's news but first it is
:00:00. > :00:08.time the Newswatch. Hello and welcome to Newswatch
:00:09. > :00:10.with me, Samira Ahmed. Coming up on the programme,
:00:11. > :00:12.amid reports of atrocities in the battle for Aleppo,
:00:13. > :00:15.how is the BBC verifying claims And, subtitles are leaving
:00:16. > :00:19.some viewers baffled Lots of viewers have been in touch
:00:20. > :00:35.questioning why the BBC devoted so much coverage to a story that
:00:36. > :00:37.only affected the Here's the BBC's transport
:00:38. > :00:43.correspondent Richard Wescott reporting on the first day
:00:44. > :00:47.of the strike. All of Southern's 2000
:00:48. > :00:50.services cancelled today. Southern wants its drivers to take
:00:51. > :01:04.over closing the train doors. It's a job currently done
:01:05. > :01:07.by the on-board guard. The unions say it's less safe
:01:08. > :01:12.and threatens jobs in the long run. Well, we asked BBC News
:01:13. > :02:04.for a response, and they told us... The war in Syria and the battle
:02:05. > :02:07.for control of Aleppo has prompted several viewers to contact
:02:08. > :02:09.Newswatch. After controlling the eastern half
:02:10. > :02:12.of Aleppo for four years, rebel groups seeking to overthrow
:02:13. > :02:16.President Bashar al-Assad this week lost almost
:02:17. > :02:18.all of their strongholds Eastern Aleppo's recapture
:02:19. > :02:22.by government forces came These scenes were filmed on a mobile
:02:23. > :02:30.phone, after a Syrian army attack. There's been, says the UN,
:02:31. > :02:38.a complete meltdown of humanity. Not everyone was happy
:02:39. > :02:40.with the BBC's coverage. Over the past year we've heard
:02:41. > :04:06.from a number of Newswatch viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing,
:04:07. > :04:09.who are sometimes left So we decided to look
:04:10. > :04:15.into how it works. Hi, I'm Suzy, I'm a live
:04:16. > :04:17.subtitling team leader. A deaf or hard of hearing person
:04:18. > :04:21.should be able to experience and get the same amount of enjoyment out
:04:22. > :04:25.of a programme as a hearing person. Normally these days,
:04:26. > :04:28.its voice recognition. So, I use my voice,
:04:29. > :04:30.I have a microphone, These stakes are huge for us full
:04:31. > :04:36.stop but comma our boys Which is much faster to stop
:04:37. > :04:42.the delay in live subtitles. On BBC One, we can join the BBC's
:04:43. > :04:45.News teams where you are. I'm listening to whatever
:04:46. > :04:47.the person is saying, repeating it exactly,
:04:48. > :04:48.adding punctuation, changing colours, and I'm
:04:49. > :04:50.reading it on screen. You have to concentrate really hard,
:04:51. > :04:53.because you're listening, you're speaking, you're reading,
:04:54. > :04:55.and sometimes you're writing, I'm joined now by the BBC's head
:04:56. > :05:01.of broadcast operations Simon Smith. So, an insight there into how hard
:05:02. > :05:04.the work is of doing news But a number of viewers have got
:05:05. > :05:10.in touch because they find the issue Nicholas Green says "I do not find
:05:11. > :05:15.contemporaneous subtitles helpful, more of a distraction really,
:05:16. > :05:20.because of the delay." Eileen Baxter says "We can go
:05:21. > :05:22.to the moon and elsewhere, but TV programmers can never get
:05:23. > :05:24.the subtitles right. They are either running behind
:05:25. > :05:29.or they are put on so fast, We've seen that obviously
:05:30. > :05:35.it is tricky doing it live. Live subtitling
:05:36. > :05:42.is done in real time. The first time that the subtitler
:05:43. > :05:45.hears what they've then got to turn into a text subtitle is exactly
:05:46. > :05:48.the same moment that the audience are hearing that
:05:49. > :05:50.interview or report. Inaccuracies are another huge
:05:51. > :05:53.frustration for viewers. And Malcolm Crowe recorded a video
:05:54. > :06:13.for us to highlight a mistake in the reporting of the recent fatal
:06:14. > :06:16.Croydon tram crash. There was a boy in the clip
:06:17. > :06:18.talking about he'd been on the tram, and he survived,
:06:19. > :06:27.but his friend did not. And some of the words
:06:28. > :06:31.which appeared on screen to explain what he was saying
:06:32. > :06:36.were really wrong. We should be able to
:06:37. > :06:55.have something better. That is a particularly unfortunate
:06:56. > :06:56.one, because obviously But people do sometimes wonder why
:06:57. > :07:02.they are so weird, I don't know, When you have a fast
:07:03. > :07:06.breaking news story, quite often the subtitling team,
:07:07. > :07:09.like the rest of the operation, We are constantly trying to improve
:07:10. > :07:19.the speech text software. But occasionally, words will be
:07:20. > :07:22.misheard by the automation And that's why sometimes words
:07:23. > :07:28.come out and they look Usually, the reason
:07:29. > :07:34.for that is that the word that the software has put out sounds
:07:35. > :07:37.a little bit like the one In a live environment it's very
:07:38. > :07:42.difficult to go back and change that because it's such
:07:43. > :07:44.a fast-moving situation. A related issue is new terms that
:07:45. > :07:49.then become a regular part of news. Alan Haleston has sent us a screen
:07:50. > :07:52.grab from the Andrew Marr show. Theresa May was talking
:07:53. > :07:54.about "Brexit" but it was How long does it take to get
:07:55. > :07:59.a word like that right? I would expect that "Brexit" now
:08:00. > :08:06.is in such common usage, that I would expect that
:08:07. > :08:10.automatically to come out correct. But it's a good example of how
:08:11. > :08:13.the software often can mishear and misinterpret words
:08:14. > :08:16.that are spoken. The "rex" of "Brexit" and "Wrexham",
:08:17. > :08:21.it's got confused there. Is there a sense of going
:08:22. > :08:24.through a list, and thinking, these are the words that
:08:25. > :08:26.are emerging, and actually putting So what happens is that a subtitler
:08:27. > :08:33.will go through the expected running order and identify unusual words,
:08:34. > :08:36.and they will train the software to use the right word
:08:37. > :08:39.when they re-speak it on air. The challenge is that there is only
:08:40. > :08:42.a limited amount of vocabulary that Sometimes if a word isn't expected,
:08:43. > :08:48.you will get that mistake. I have to say, within that example,
:08:49. > :08:51.an interview with the Prime Minister at the moment in the current
:08:52. > :08:53.situation, I would have expected that to be correct
:08:54. > :08:56.and we will certainly take that away Viewer Malcolm Crowe
:08:57. > :09:01.who we heard from earlier, obviously uses subtitles a lot,
:09:02. > :09:04.has said he has started to watch Sky News now instead
:09:05. > :09:07.of BBC News, here's why. We find that the subtitles
:09:08. > :09:10.on Sky are more reliable It's not so much a matter of choice
:09:11. > :09:19.but it's a matter of necessity if we want to get the proper sense
:09:20. > :09:25.of what's going on. So is the BBC using the most
:09:26. > :09:28.up-to-date technology as perhaps That's a very interesting
:09:29. > :09:31.observation, because I can absolutely guarantee
:09:32. > :09:34.that the technology which is used for Sky is the same technology
:09:35. > :09:37.which is used for the BBC, because they use the same system
:09:38. > :09:40.that was developed for the BBC Subtitling, I'm afraid,
:09:41. > :09:46.of that form, live subtitling I fully accept there
:09:47. > :09:54.is further to go. But equally we have had some
:09:55. > :09:56.significant improvements Simon Smith, thank you so much
:09:57. > :10:00.for coming on Newswatch. Do let us know your thoughts on
:10:01. > :10:11.that, or on any aspect of BBC News. Details of how to contact us
:10:12. > :10:16.at the end of the programme. Now, a few people contacted
:10:17. > :10:18.Newswatch about the BBC's coverage of the Nobel Prize ceremony
:10:19. > :10:20.in Stockholm, concerned that the BBC focused too much
:10:21. > :10:25.on Bob Dylan's non-appearance. TRANSLATION: Bob Dylan came
:10:26. > :10:28.to literature through the beauty With his work, Bob Dylan changed
:10:29. > :10:40.the way we understand poetry. He may not have been
:10:41. > :10:42.there to receive his award, but fellow singer Patti Smith
:10:43. > :10:45.did turn up. She performed one of his most
:10:46. > :10:49.famous songs, eventually. Thank you so much for
:10:50. > :11:32.all your comments this week. If you want to share your opinions
:11:33. > :11:36.on BBC News or current affairs, or even appear on the programme,
:11:37. > :11:40.you can call us on 0370 010 6676, You can find us on
:11:41. > :11:47.Twitter @NewswatchBBC. Do have a look at our website,
:11:48. > :11:53.bbc.co.uk/newswatch. We'll be back in the New Year
:11:54. > :11:56.on January 6th to hear your thoughts Until then, from all of us
:11:57. > :12:03.on the programme, have a very happy