24/03/2017 Newswatch

Hello and welcome. Two big issues on the programme this week. BBC news

programmes decamp to Westminster near the site of Wednesday's attack,

was this the scale and response that the attacker might have hoped for?

Did coverage of Martin McGuinness's death focus too much on his role as

a peacemaker and not enough on his IRA past? From early Wednesday

afternoon millions have watched what unfolded in Westminster with a sense

of shock and revulsion, and for some there was also concern about whether

the huge media attention paid into the hands of those who would support

this outrage. -- played. We are going to update you on an

ongoing incident going on at the Palace of Westminster. We were

treated to nothing more than an often repeated sequence of 3-4

events that happened, interspersed with speculation, and then the event

repeated and then more speculation. BBC, you can do better than this,

repeating things over and over again, highlighting the terrorism,

isn't that exactly what the terrorists want? I rather suspect it

is. His views were echoed by many other viewers, and of course a

degree of repetition and speculation is inevitable in the initial

reporting of an event of this kind, but other viewers objected to the

choice made by BBC News to broadcast extensively since the attack not

from its usual studios, but from the streets of Westminster near the

scene of the crime. The News at ten, on Wednesday, the Thursday News and

Victoria Derbyshire that day and much of the Channel's out but also

mounted outside broadcast, which some felt could have disrupted the

police work and was also different to the carry on approach which was

encouraged by the Prime Minister. Why did the anchor 's have to run

the programme from an empty Street, Reading from a makeshift prompt? Why

were their repeated visits to reporters outside hospitals? Who had

nothing to report. All of this served to dramatise the situation

adding nothing to the quality of the coverage. But giving maximum

exposure for the terrorist. Apart from reporting facts and showing

respect for victims, the day after an attack like this should be

handled like any other day. If the programme had been run from the

studio, with some time allocated to other news, the BBC would have shown

that normality had not been disrupted by the incident. Instead

you chose to show the terrorist, and what a big impact they can have. To

discuss how BBC News has covered the attacks and joined by Gavin Allen,

the BBC controller of news programmes. It was a terrible

attack, and viewers are say, what was to be gained by all of these

outside broadcasts, given there were no further developments. There were

further developments on the morning after, for instance, and it remained

a situation which was unfolding and there was a minutes silence about to

happen and MPs were coming back for a special statement by the Prime

Minister later that morning. It is partly about the nature of news, and

to be at a location, where something has happened, you do get a better

understanding as a journalist, rather than when you are sitting at

a desk, and it conveys to the audience that this is a major event

and this will have a huge impact on the UK. There is a concern about

copycats. I don't think responsibly reporting what has happened is

encouraging people to repeat it. We are very aware of the

responsibilities we have but we are also aware that there are millions

of people out there, who want to know what actually happened, not

just what is being speculated on and what they think might have happened

or the rumours. They come to the BBC to understand what is actually a

curving and that is our job. Let's be realistic, this was a huge event

and there is going to be publicity for the terrorists in this case,

because everywhere, social media, every news organisation, is going to

cover it, and the responsibility for the BBC is to make sure that the way

we cover it and the precision with which we cover it is absolutely

accurate so you get the information you need without overly

sensationalising it. There were many images of the dead and dying and

injured and many people thought this was intrusive. I would quibble with

that. There were images across this week in the newsroom and in

newspapers, and on-air, but we take great care to think what I'll be

conveying with this image and there are images which we did not show --

what are we conveying. In terms of conveying and try to understand for

the audience's site what has happened and the severity of what

has happened, but not to overflow into insensitivity and imaging on

the dignity of the injured and the dying and sadly in the case of the

dead, their family, that is important. PC Keith Palmer died and

people will take that as an example of intrusive coverage. We were very

careful not to show many of those images, but we tried to show the

scene and a more general generic sense of people gathered around him

trying to save him. Again it is the balance, this is an event which has

happened. People said they saw the bodies of people who were severely

injured or possibly dead. The fact they did not necessarily see their

faces does not make it accept will. It makes a difference, and if you

see a crowd of people around someone who was injured, that is different

from seeing the person who is injured and the injury, and that is

a big difference, but in fairness it is a precise line. You have got to

make a judgment and that is why Devon broadcasters and different

organisations have come to different judgments. -- different

broadcasters. You did have a lot of repetition after the attack with not

much in the way of facts and some viewers feel that this kind of

coverage is adding to a sense of panic unnecessarily. I don't think

it does, people come to the news channel to find out what is the

latest news, how long they stay for it is up to them but it varies, but

if you come in you want the news instantly, so there will be

repetition, and at any minute there could be an update, and what we

tried to do is to make sure that every bit of that information was

conveyed clearly and accurately and not to speculate and I think we

achieved that fairly well. Thank you. We will talk about the next

issue. That was not the only big controversy, Martin the business, a

former IRA leader who played a significant role in the Northern

Ireland peace process, becoming Deputy First Minister after that --

Martin McGuinness. But for many viewers the BBC focus too much on

the latter part of his life and not enough on the former. We have this

phone message. It is unbelievable what the BBC have done, with praise,

praise, praise, for a butcher, an absolute butcher of a person. Other

viewers objected to the scale and the tone of the coverage including

Des Murphy who sent this e-mail. Gavin is still in the studio. The

main charges at the BBC glossed over his serious past as a senior IRA

commander and that was not acceptable if you were trying to be

balanced. It would have been not acceptable if we had glossed over

that part of his life, but we didn't. It was very clear in the

interviews we did and the packages we ran that we were conveying

someone who yes, in the second half of their life was a senior

politician and a negotiator for the peace process, but in the early half

was absolutely clearly involved with the IRA and was responsible directly

or indirectly for a number of deaths and we could not have glossed over

that. We had hundreds of complaints and they said it was not given

enough attention, the terrorist past, and the interviews with Tony

Blair and Bill Clinton were paying tribute to the peace process and

complaints to -- and criticisms were further down the order. I can think

of many examples when we had the voices of relatives of victims, and

people such as Norman Tebbit, who were clear in their utter

condemnation and loathing of someone they described as a cow would. And

the world is a sweeter place, and we were clear there was an utter hatred

of Martin McGuinness, but there was also a reverence for him by others

and we had to make sure that this is a very complex person, hated on one

side and laughed on another and we have got to convey that is who he

was. The BBC can be accused of being too reverential when it comes to an

obituary for fear of causing offence. That is a danger of all

obituaries, not just the BBC, you tend to accentuate the positive when

people have died, but we tried to be as balance as we could be here, but

in principle, it is incredibly important that you convey a person's

life with an obituary, not just a sensitivity towards relatives and

the moment that he's died. We had hundreds of complaints from people

who are very angry and who said the BBC did not give enough attention to

Martin McGuinness's terrorist past. What I would say to them, one of the

images of this week that stays with me about Martin McGuinness, the

First Minister, Arlene Foster, going to the funeral yesterday, as a

member of the DUP party, at the funeral of a former IRA commander,

and that is a pretty extraordinary juxtaposition of someone who should

be a sworn enemy but recognises this is quite complex and I don't

underplay in anyway the fact that as I say people hated this man. But it

is the job at the BBC to represent the totality of somebody and the

views across the board of that person. Gavin Allen, thanks for

joining us. Thank you for your comments this week. Please share

your opinions on BBC News by calling us or e-mailing us. We also on

Twitter. Have a look at the website for previous discussions. That is

all from us and we will be back to hear your thoughts about BBC News

coverage next week. Goodbye. The weather is the king great this

week in, these guys will be clearing pretty much everywhere through the

course of the evening and overnight -- is looking great. It will be a

chilly night. This is the high