:00:00. > :00:08.Coming up at ten, a full round-up of the day's news. First, it's
:00:09. > :00:10.Newswatch. Hello and welcome to Newswatch
:00:11. > :00:12.with me Samira Ahmed. Coming up: the party
:00:13. > :00:14.manifestos are all out. How well has the BBC
:00:15. > :00:16.done on explaining their policies fairly
:00:17. > :00:19.and impartially? And, are we hearing too many random
:00:20. > :00:22.opinions from not always With the main parties
:00:23. > :00:32.publishing their offers to voters, this week has seen the
:00:33. > :00:35.general election campaign in full The BBC's political editor
:00:36. > :00:38.Laura Kuenssberg was on hand and on Here she is on Thursday
:00:39. > :00:46.reporting on the Conservatives' proposals,
:00:47. > :00:53.and first on Tuesday reacting And remember not so long ago in 2015
:00:54. > :00:58.Ed Miliband made a few little tiptoes to the left of where
:00:59. > :01:01.Labour had been and he lost that Jeremy Corbyn is making a much
:01:02. > :01:09.bigger step in the same direct of Middle England are really ready
:01:10. > :01:12.for the policies that he believes And, of course, the
:01:13. > :01:18.complications of Brexit means whatever else she is promising
:01:19. > :01:21.could be derailed by that becoming extremely difficult,
:01:22. > :01:24.and not just hard to deliver So, broadly, though, as with any
:01:25. > :01:33.political idea leader for the mainstream, easier
:01:34. > :01:35.to say than to prove. Some viewers object
:01:36. > :01:38.to what they see as a running commentary on what politicians
:01:39. > :01:40.are saying and doing during the campaign, with David Jowett
:01:41. > :01:46.putting it like this. "It seems the news bulletins
:01:47. > :01:48.are becoming the Laura Her pieces to camera
:01:49. > :01:51.and the questioning of political figures are not the broad
:01:52. > :01:54.unbiased approach that one should expect from the BBC but come across
:01:55. > :01:57.as the presentation of personal The BBC should be providing
:01:58. > :02:09.a broader approach with a considerably higher
:02:10. > :02:10.factual content." Allegations of bias,
:02:11. > :02:12.as we've mentioned before in recent weeks, have been rife with some
:02:13. > :02:15.viewers feeling the BBC has given the lion's share of screen time
:02:16. > :02:18.and prominence to the Labour Party. Tom and Jan Borland
:02:19. > :02:20.profess themselves, "Bemused and somewhat annoyed,
:02:21. > :02:22.to say the least, by the total airtime given over
:02:23. > :02:24.to the Labour Party, and to Jeremy Corbyn in particular,
:02:25. > :02:27.who is the lead story every time This amount of press
:02:28. > :02:31.coverage is, to my mind, highly disproportionate, biased
:02:32. > :02:33.towards a single person and his party and not conducive to a level
:02:34. > :02:42.political playing field." For the majority of
:02:43. > :02:50.those contacting the BBC, though, the bias
:02:51. > :02:52.is in the other direction with Rav Dhillon speaking for many
:02:53. > :02:55.who feel, "There is a sneering and condescending tone
:02:56. > :02:57.in the interviewing and reporting Elsewhere, the BBC's
:02:58. > :02:59.economics editor Kamal Ahmed also came under attack after his
:03:00. > :03:02.piece on Labour's manifesto on Those earning above ?80,000
:03:03. > :03:22.will pay a tax rate of If you earn above that amount
:03:23. > :03:26.the loss will be around ?400. For those earning ?123,000
:03:27. > :03:28.the rate rises to 50p. That could leave some
:03:29. > :03:32.with a loss of up to ?23,000. Many viewers took to their
:03:33. > :03:34.calculators and then to social media to point out that those sums
:03:35. > :03:37.were wrong as the BBC later acknowledged, though not on-air,
:03:38. > :03:39.those earning ?123,000 under Labour's
:03:40. > :03:40.plans would actually pay an extra ?2150 in
:03:41. > :03:50.income tax, not 23,000. You'd have to earn ?500,000 to be
:03:51. > :03:52.taxed that much more. Philip Jones told us,
:03:53. > :03:57."I will assume this was a genuine error, albeit a gross one,
:03:58. > :04:00.and not a deliberate ploy to mislead potential voters into
:04:01. > :04:02.mistrusting the Labour Party." But Louis Mendee spoke for many
:04:03. > :04:05.when he posted, "This It is wildly unacceptable for
:04:06. > :04:09.the BBC to be reporting falsehoods Later that night there
:04:10. > :04:20.were several examples of the BBC's efforts to get out
:04:21. > :04:23.and about during this election campaign and hear the views
:04:24. > :04:24.of so-called Here's Deputy Political
:04:25. > :04:29.Editor John Pienaar soliciting opinions
:04:30. > :04:33.in a gym in Bradford. Labour under Jeremy Corbyn,
:04:34. > :04:36.what do you think? Well, I quite like his
:04:37. > :04:38.policies but I don't I agree, yeah, I don't think
:04:39. > :04:45.they're doable myself. Kenny Watt was watching
:04:46. > :04:49.that and thought the views of the gentlemen
:04:50. > :04:51.exercising there, and more generally vox pops like that, did not add
:04:52. > :04:55.greatly to the sum of human He's got a journalist coming
:04:56. > :04:59.in when he's in the middle of his work-out asking him questions
:05:00. > :05:01.when he's probably just thinking, "Oh my god, when's this hill
:05:02. > :05:05.climb going to end?" And that's the problem
:05:06. > :05:07.with vox pops, because basically you're not getting a true
:05:08. > :05:09.representation of the population. This is how we get into the position
:05:10. > :05:15.of sound bites winning elections. Stick to having trained journalists
:05:16. > :05:17.telling us about the facts in a story rather than the opinions
:05:18. > :05:31.of the ill informed. Well, let's discuss some of those
:05:32. > :05:33.issues with the BBC's editor of political news Katy Searle who's
:05:34. > :05:36.in our Westminster studio. Katy, let's start with
:05:37. > :05:38.the allegations of bias, mostly claiming that the BBC has
:05:39. > :05:40.an anti-Corbyn bias You've seen the examples that
:05:41. > :05:44.viewers have raised. We have very strong and clear
:05:45. > :05:48.guidelines that we follow, editorial guidelines, and they're
:05:49. > :05:50.in line with the Ofcom code of conduct as well,
:05:51. > :05:53.which show that we have strict rules period and to reflect all parties'
:05:54. > :06:01.positions and policies. And that's something
:06:02. > :06:03.we do absolutely and we Labour supporters are
:06:04. > :06:14.complaining that too much coverage is
:06:15. > :06:15.attacking the party. Tory supporters are saying Labour
:06:16. > :06:18.get more air time, so how is BBC News approaching that whole
:06:19. > :06:33.issue of balance and fairness? What we have to do
:06:34. > :06:37.is take our editorial judgments and that's always
:06:38. > :06:39.going to have to guide our coverage. And that's why programme
:06:40. > :06:41.editors across the BBC and correspondents on air,
:06:42. > :06:44.as well as Laura, the political editor, have long and careful
:06:45. > :06:46.discussions about what stories we're going to cover, what are the values
:06:47. > :06:50.in the news terms of those stories, and then how do they fit in line
:06:51. > :06:53.with the guidelines that I've just What's noticeable already in this
:06:54. > :06:56.election campaign is that perceived errors, and indeed
:06:57. > :06:58.some factual ones, amplified on social media when people
:06:59. > :07:00.try to build a campaign around them saying, look,
:07:01. > :07:02.the BBC's being unfair. How should the BBC deal
:07:03. > :07:16.with those examples? Look, we're all human,
:07:17. > :07:17.we do make mistakes. Look, you know, we're
:07:18. > :07:19.working to tight deadlines with lots of information
:07:20. > :07:22.coming in all the time In those circumstances you just have
:07:23. > :07:26.to look and see where you can correct it as
:07:27. > :07:28.quickly as possible. And just on the detail I think
:07:29. > :07:30.it's worth adding that sometimes graphics actually
:07:31. > :07:32.can not be as clear. You are trying to sum up quite
:07:33. > :07:35.a lot of detail in one simple picture of
:07:36. > :07:37.numbers and figures. What we need to do is be very clear
:07:38. > :07:40.that our scripting goes around that and tells
:07:41. > :07:43.the full story. We have seen a particularly vocal
:07:44. > :07:45.campaign online against Laura Kuenssberg alleging
:07:46. > :07:46.anti-Labour bias. Laura Kuenssberg is a first-class
:07:47. > :08:01.political editor who has worked incredibly hard
:08:02. > :08:03.to get her job right. Laura does the daily analysis
:08:04. > :08:06.of all of the political parties and, of course, no personal views
:08:07. > :08:09.are reflected in any sense on any party, and that's true not just
:08:10. > :08:12.of Laura but across the BBC. So Laura's doing her job and she's
:08:13. > :08:20.doing that brilliantly. More broadly, though,
:08:21. > :08:22.viewers do complain that there's too much personal commentary
:08:23. > :08:23.from political correspondents who are kind of filling airtime
:08:24. > :08:26.and it is not fact-based, Wouldn't the BBC be better,
:08:27. > :08:30.as at least one of our viewers has suggested, just sticking
:08:31. > :08:40.to factual reporting? Well, I think analysis is really
:08:41. > :08:42.important actually, as part Certainly in elections,
:08:43. > :08:45.and as we saw in the referendum last year,
:08:46. > :08:47.parties and campaigns have their own positions to push
:08:48. > :08:49.and they will do that And really, an important part
:08:50. > :08:54.of our job is to try and analyse and say to the viewer,
:08:55. > :08:56.well, on balance this That's why we have very experienced
:08:57. > :09:00.people from Laura down across the BBC working on that
:09:01. > :09:03.and trying to give the audience something that means something
:09:04. > :09:13.and not just slogans and numbers. We have to talk about vox pops
:09:14. > :09:16.because they come up every election and the charge is two things,
:09:17. > :09:19.one is if they are too gimmicky you're not going to get much
:09:20. > :09:22.of an answer if people But also that they're not informed
:09:23. > :09:25.and are representative, and shouldn't the BBC be more
:09:26. > :09:28.careful about using them? -- But also that they're not
:09:29. > :09:30.informed and are not representative, and shouldn't the BBC be more
:09:31. > :09:33.careful about using them? Yeah, vox pops are tricky actually
:09:34. > :09:36.because I have a bit of However, if we're doing
:09:37. > :09:39.a lot of politicians, and we are at the moment, and it's
:09:40. > :09:42.a very formalised way of presenting their views and opinions, I think
:09:43. > :09:45.vox pops gives us a bit of colour. It also does the most important
:09:46. > :09:48.thing which is to reflect the And in this campaign which goes
:09:49. > :09:52.on for several weeks we want to hear from our audience
:09:53. > :09:55.as well and try and, if you like, Vox pop is an unscientific
:09:56. > :09:58.way of doing that but it's the best way that we
:09:59. > :10:02.can do when we're dealing with tight Away from the cut and thrust
:10:03. > :10:12.of the election but not entirely unconnected to it was
:10:13. > :10:14.the coverage of last Friday's cyber-attack which use ransomware
:10:15. > :10:17.to lock files in 150 different countries demanding
:10:18. > :10:18.payment to allow access. Some viewers were unhappy
:10:19. > :10:21.with the way the story was reported and one of them Alex McGill recorded
:10:22. > :10:30.this video to explain why. Clearly the real story
:10:31. > :10:32.was that businesses large and small across the world had
:10:33. > :10:40.been attacked and damaged done. But from the initial reports one
:10:41. > :10:42.could easily have concluded that This unbalanced reporting
:10:43. > :10:49.is particularly bad in the middle of an election campaign and can only
:10:50. > :10:52.heighten the perception of editorial Finally, the Moors murderer
:10:53. > :10:59.Ian Brady died on Tuesday. The 79-year-old had
:11:00. > :11:00.tortured and killed five children in the 1960s with his
:11:01. > :11:04.partner Myra Hindley and buried them Some viewers objected
:11:05. > :11:15.to the prominence given to the news. Why was it necessary for it to be
:11:16. > :11:20.in the number one spot, to have so much time given to this story,
:11:21. > :11:23.for the BBC to then try and find people that they could
:11:24. > :11:26.interview on this story? By doing this all they were actually
:11:27. > :11:29.doing was causing yet more distress to the families
:11:30. > :11:31.of these children, who have to live with
:11:32. > :11:33.this day in day out This could have been dealt
:11:34. > :11:37.with with a simple one-liner Thank you for all your
:11:38. > :11:45.comments this week. If you want to share your opinions
:11:46. > :11:49.on BBC News and current affairs, you can call us on 0370 010 6676, or
:11:50. > :11:59.e-mail newswatch@bbc.co.uk. You can find us on Twitter
:12:00. > :12:02.@NewswatchBBC, and do The address for that is
:12:03. > :12:08.bbc.co.uk/newswatch. We'll be back to hear
:12:09. > :12:12.your thoughts about BBC