:00:00. > :00:00.At ten o'clock we have a full round-up of the day's news, but
:00:07. > :00:11.Hello and welcome to Newswatch with me, Samira Ahmed.
:00:12. > :00:14.Coming up: As more and more people use social media
:00:15. > :00:17.as their primary source of news, how well is BBC journalism
:00:18. > :00:23.And were this week's reports about pensioners being better off
:00:24. > :00:32.than those of working age misleading and divisive?
:00:33. > :00:34.First, the ongoing tension between Donald Trump and the media
:00:35. > :00:37.broke out into open hostilities again this week at a news
:00:38. > :00:42.The BBC's Jon Sopel had this encounter with the president.
:00:43. > :01:03.On the travel ban would you accept that that was a good example
:01:04. > :01:13.Spiky exchanges of that kind seem likely to continue and we will no
:01:14. > :01:17.doubt be examining the BBC's relationship with the White House
:01:18. > :01:21.again soon, but for now let's leave it with a couple of comments posted
:01:22. > :01:49.And Penny Paisley agreed it was a victory on points
:01:50. > :01:57.The phenomenon of items on news bulletins being used to trail
:01:58. > :02:01.forthcoming BBC current affairs programmes has been noted
:02:02. > :02:06.Does this practice simply make the most of the BBC's
:02:07. > :02:08.journalism across its output, or are these just plugs
:02:09. > :02:14.Tony Francis thought two examples also on the news at six
:02:15. > :02:16.at the start of this week fell into the latter category.
:02:17. > :02:19.On Monday the first headline was the fact that the prisons
:02:20. > :02:24.are in crisis and then the newsreader went on to say
:02:25. > :02:28.there was a Panorama programme later in the evening showing
:02:29. > :02:34.The second item on the BBC News at 6 o'clock was the fact that
:02:35. > :02:38.a supermarket has been keeping special offers open for months
:02:39. > :02:46.There was to be another BBC programme at 7:30pm
:02:47. > :02:53.Seems to me that the BBC is not reporting news at all,
:02:54. > :02:57.it is actually making its news, or trying to and at the same
:02:58. > :03:01.time simply a matter of promoting your own programmes.
:03:02. > :03:06.This is not what the news seems to me to be about.
:03:07. > :03:09.Monday saw a number of complaints about a story which featured
:03:10. > :03:12.across several bulletins and services, including
:03:13. > :03:16.the News At One, introduced here by Sophie Raworth.
:03:17. > :03:18.Pensioners are on average better off than those of working age
:03:19. > :03:22.for the first time according to new research by the think tank
:03:23. > :03:28.It says a new wave of pensioners are more likely than previous
:03:29. > :03:31.generations to own their own home, have generous private pensions
:03:32. > :03:37.Not mentioned in the introduction, though it was in the report that
:03:38. > :03:40.followed, was that the calculation made by the Resolution Foundation
:03:41. > :03:44.was based on household income after housing costs such
:03:45. > :03:49.The BBC's own reality check on the news website said this
:03:50. > :03:53.important factor had been mentioned little in the coverage.
:03:54. > :03:56.It found that before housing costs are taken into account,
:03:57. > :03:59.working age households still have higher incomes.
:04:00. > :04:02.A number of older viewers felt that both the topline claim of the story,
:04:03. > :04:06.that pensioners are better off than workers, and the way
:04:07. > :04:09.that the statistics were reported, was unbalanced.
:04:10. > :04:36.Wynne Merrill has put it with some sarcasm in his e-mail.
:04:37. > :04:39.Now, on Thursday the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told the BBC
:04:40. > :04:41.that fake news had damaged public debate, following criticism
:04:42. > :04:45.that his site had not done enough to prevent made up or distorted
:04:46. > :04:49.stories from appearing on its news feed.
:04:50. > :04:52.The BBC has an interest in Facebook's reputation
:04:53. > :04:54.as it is increasingly using it as a platform for
:04:55. > :04:58.It's part of a strategy of embracing new, digital
:04:59. > :05:01.technologies and social media, a revolution in how the BBC
:05:02. > :05:09.Once upon a time, BBC News had only two means of broadcasting,
:05:10. > :05:16.But now it is faced with a vast increasing number of ways
:05:17. > :05:21.There is Twitter, where the BBC's breaking news account has almost
:05:22. > :05:25.30 million followers, Instagram where more than 3 million
:05:26. > :05:27.people follow BBC News, and of course Facebook,
:05:28. > :05:30.where the corporation has the largest page of any news
:05:31. > :05:38.In addition, it has started streaming some of it
:05:39. > :05:41.output via Facebook live, as well as other live streaming
:05:42. > :05:46.But has all this activity left some traditional licence fee paying
:05:47. > :05:58.Penelope Noel thinks so, e-mailing us to say:
:05:59. > :06:02.on digital media discriminates against the very many people
:06:03. > :06:04.who are unable to afford or use digital devices.
:06:05. > :06:06.Stories like the investigation earlier this month into wildlife
:06:07. > :06:09.traffickers selling baby chimpanzees are now rolled out in carefully
:06:10. > :06:11.targeted ways to different digital destinations,
:06:12. > :06:14.attracting significant traffic on a variety of platforms.
:06:15. > :06:16.The benefit of this strategy for BBC News is obvious
:06:17. > :06:19.in capturing hard to reach, younger audiences where they are
:06:20. > :06:23.already spending their time online, but there are dangers as well.
:06:24. > :06:25.Facebook, for instance, has faced mounting criticism
:06:26. > :06:28.for publishing fake news, so how does the BBC avoid being seen
:06:29. > :06:32.as just another potentially unreliable news source?
:06:33. > :06:36.And does its presence on the site risk giving away its content
:06:37. > :06:39.without bringing people back to spend time on the
:06:40. > :06:43.Let's explore those questions with the social media
:06:44. > :06:47.editor for the BBC News, Mark Frenkel.
:06:48. > :06:50.How important are social media platforms like
:06:51. > :06:57.One of the things we have to realise about Facebook is it controls
:06:58. > :07:00.and manages a huge proportion of the social web.
:07:01. > :07:04.Facebook owns Instagram, whatsApp, Facebook Messenger,
:07:05. > :07:08.there are 1.9 billion active users on Facebook.
:07:09. > :07:13.For the BBC not to be producing content and distributing it
:07:14. > :07:20.It would be a loss for our audiences that inhabit those spaces
:07:21. > :07:22.and want to explore more of our content and see and engage
:07:23. > :07:24.and enrich themselves with the information
:07:25. > :07:29.They don't pay a licence fee, certainly Facebook doesn't.
:07:30. > :07:32.What is the deal that the BBC has done with them for providing them
:07:33. > :07:37.Well, Facebook is an open platform and there is nothing to stop any
:07:38. > :07:40.publisher from producing content and distributing it
:07:41. > :07:47.We have an arrangement with Facebook in that we produce content for live
:07:48. > :07:53.Outside of that we are publishing regular content all the time
:07:54. > :07:57.onto Facebook, links to articles on the BBC News website, videos
:07:58. > :07:59.that we are producing across BBC News, and we will continue
:08:00. > :08:05.As we know, Facebook has this problem with fake news.
:08:06. > :08:08.One wonders if there is not just a danger that the BBC is just
:08:09. > :08:12.another provider on there and a lot of the audience do not notice
:08:13. > :08:17.They are just looking for the story and the BBC doesn't really get
:08:18. > :08:21.Well, I think this is all about our values
:08:22. > :08:26.We are not compromising anything in terms of BBC values,
:08:27. > :08:29.objectivity and impartiality by producing content
:08:30. > :08:35.Clearly, the content that we are producing and publishing
:08:36. > :08:38.into that space is alongside lots of other content.
:08:39. > :08:41.We cannot vouch for the authenticity, the voracity,
:08:42. > :08:46.of other people's content, but what we can do is search
:08:47. > :08:49.for our own and the more content that we produce into that space that
:08:50. > :08:52.people see, the more they will learn to understand and trust and value
:08:53. > :08:56.the BBC and see it relevant to their lives and the things that
:08:57. > :09:02.What we are learning all the time here is how to produce content
:09:03. > :09:04.in a valuable way for an audience on social media.
:09:05. > :09:07.And it isn't just a question of taking a television
:09:08. > :09:10.package and sticking it into a Facebook page.
:09:11. > :09:13.You have to think about how your audience will come to it,
:09:14. > :09:16.see it, engage with it, look to share it and so forth,
:09:17. > :09:19.so you are having to retailor, repurpose, reposition,
:09:20. > :09:23.think about the visuals, the impact, the text that you are putting
:09:24. > :09:25.at the top of the piece and so forth.
:09:26. > :09:30.But also we get a lot of complaints at Newswatch that BBC News has
:09:31. > :09:37.Is there a danger of trying to give social media what it wants,
:09:38. > :09:40.which might be a preoccupation with stories that really are not
:09:41. > :09:43.very serious and that is affecting the news content that is produced
:09:44. > :09:48.I think all the time the preoccupation that I have
:09:49. > :09:52.and the colleagues who work with me in social media at the BBC have,
:09:53. > :09:56.is giving our audiences things that are editorially valuable
:09:57. > :09:59.and interesting, but at the same time will be the kind of things
:10:00. > :10:03.we know that will interest them from a social media perspective.
:10:04. > :10:08.It is not about dumbing down or abandoning serious news values,
:10:09. > :10:11.it is about saying, we have got a really important story
:10:12. > :10:14.to tell you about Syria, we have got an important story
:10:15. > :10:17.about the American election, or whatever the story happens to be
:10:18. > :10:20.at any moment in time, and thinking how can we make that
:10:21. > :10:23.interesting for someone who might be coming to that story for the first
:10:24. > :10:28.time on a social media feed or platform?
:10:29. > :10:31.It can seem sometimes as though social media is not operating under
:10:32. > :10:34.the same editorial guidelines as the rest of the BBC.
:10:35. > :10:37.How far are their guidelines about how you write for social media
:10:38. > :10:40.similar to the traditional BBC News editorials?
:10:41. > :10:45.We have a lot of guidelines and we have a lot of editorial
:10:46. > :10:49.thought that has gone into them and we have very rigorous
:10:50. > :10:55.To my mind social media is another form of broadcasting.
:10:56. > :10:58.It is not a marketing exercise, it is not an additional process
:10:59. > :11:02.that we join up onto the end of a television programme,
:11:03. > :11:07.We really want to reach and engage those audiences,
:11:08. > :11:10.we want to encourage them to explore more of the content
:11:11. > :11:13.that we are producing, but we need to take it seriously.
:11:14. > :11:16.Just as a television programme, if you were writing the script
:11:17. > :11:20.for the six o'clock News or the ten o'clock news, you would write
:11:21. > :11:22.the first draft, somebody else would look over it,
:11:23. > :11:26.there would be a process by which that script will then get
:11:27. > :11:37.Exactly the same processes take place with our social media writing.
:11:38. > :11:41.Thank you for all your comments this week.
:11:42. > :11:45.If you want to share your opinions on BBC News and current affairs,
:11:46. > :11:51.or even appear in the programme, you can call us.
:11:52. > :12:23.That is all from us, we will be back to hear your thoughts about BBC News
:12:24. > :12:25.Coming up: A detailed forecast for the weatherhead, followed by