:00:00. > :00:00.Now it's time for Newswatch, with Samira Ahmed.
:00:00. > :00:12.This week, could virtual reality be the future of news?
:00:13. > :00:23.Hello and welcome to Newswatch. BBC news through a virtual reality
:00:24. > :00:26.headset. Will audiences take a experiencing news events this way?
:00:27. > :00:39.And what questions to the new technologies pose for journalists?
:00:40. > :00:44.First, though, Saffi Roussos was one of 22 people killed at a pop concert
:00:45. > :00:51.in Manchester on 22nd of May. She would have been nine on Thursday.
:00:52. > :00:55.Judith Mauritz spoke to her parents. I just wanted to celebrate the
:00:56. > :01:06.birthday of Saffi through doing this. What has your family lost? We
:01:07. > :01:11.have lost everything. We have, because we will just never be the
:01:12. > :01:17.same. Stephanie and Trevor Firth were a number of viewers picking on
:01:18. > :01:36.one aspect of that interview, saying...
:01:37. > :01:43.Versions of the report ran on BBC News all day, leading the news at
:01:44. > :01:47.6pm. It provided powerful and moving television but some people had
:01:48. > :02:14.concerns about the prominence given to the item. Here is Mark Eden....
:02:15. > :02:26.Linda Dell also contacted us about the coverage, leaving as this
:02:27. > :02:32.telephone message. I found it to be mawkish in the extreme to show the
:02:33. > :02:43.video clip of the people outside the concert hall. Surely the BBC can
:02:44. > :02:46.find better news than this and finding these people in anguish to
:02:47. > :02:53.put them on screen. I am fed up with it. The BBC director General Lord
:02:54. > :02:57.Hall announced the corporation's annual plan this week, and he
:02:58. > :03:03.addressed what he called a huge competition presented online by
:03:04. > :03:07.companies such as Amazon and Netflix. He proposed the development
:03:08. > :03:16.of virtual reality content in the news and current affairs. There has
:03:17. > :03:22.been some work in this area, including We Wrote, which dramatises
:03:23. > :03:32.the journey to Europe of a Syrian family on smuggler bows. -- boats.
:03:33. > :03:36.The film was animated by the makers of Wallace and Gromit and it won an
:03:37. > :03:42.industry award this week. It may not be news as we know it, but could it
:03:43. > :03:48.be the future? Virtual reality footage like that is only properly
:03:49. > :03:53.experienced wearing a headset, but a simpler version, 360 degrees video,
:03:54. > :03:59.can be viewed online and on mobiles. The first such attack was aired
:04:00. > :04:09.following the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2000 15. This is
:04:10. > :04:13.what it is like in today, this is the Place de la Republique. The
:04:14. > :04:18.attention was to create an immersive style of reporting which puts the
:04:19. > :04:21.viewer at the heart of the story. But what questions to these new
:04:22. > :04:26.technologies raise for the BBC, and could they revolutionise the way
:04:27. > :04:30.that audiences receive news? I am joined by the newly appointed head
:04:31. > :04:42.of the BBC virtual reality hub. Can you explain the difference between
:04:43. > :04:45.VR and 360? If you watch it through a virtual reality headset, the
:04:46. > :04:53.footage, when you look around, it feels like you're there. It is much
:04:54. > :04:56.more immersive. But true VR is made from computer graphics and fix your
:04:57. > :05:02.head into thinking that you are someone else. There is a giant pit
:05:03. > :05:06.that it up there you and your heart might start beating faster and you
:05:07. > :05:14.would get that fear of being in a real situation you are scared. We
:05:15. > :05:19.have seen 360 degrees footage of the Large Hadron Collider. You get a
:05:20. > :05:24.sense of its scale. It is more than just watching standard news footage.
:05:25. > :05:28.VR is different. We have got that headset. You've got a film that has
:05:29. > :05:32.been made for BBC News on it. This is a film we made to show you what
:05:33. > :05:37.it was likely be a firefighter. This was a fireman that rescued six
:05:38. > :05:42.children from a house fire on Christmas Day, 2012. The phone is
:05:43. > :05:49.slotted into the front of their headset which is playing it. Get
:05:50. > :05:54.started. Straightaway, it is in someone's room, and you're watching
:05:55. > :05:58.how the fire starts. It is amazing. It does feel like you're in the room
:05:59. > :06:04.with this fire officer talking to you, from his station, and
:06:05. > :06:10.explaining the background to this incident, that he had to tackle. It
:06:11. > :06:15.is just the scale of it. You feel like it is my size. It is very
:06:16. > :06:19.different to watching something on a flat screen. -- life-size. If it
:06:20. > :06:27.works well on a flat screen, it is not virtual reality. Obviously Yu
:06:28. > :06:32.Hanchao -- choices about which stories get that treatment. How do
:06:33. > :06:37.you decide what might be a story for VR or 360, or the benefit of telling
:06:38. > :06:41.it that way? The benefit allows the audience to step inside story, so
:06:42. > :06:46.that they see it as you would, if you were a reporter. For example for
:06:47. > :06:50.a foreign reporter to stand in a place and allow the audience to look
:06:51. > :06:54.around and see, and almost smell and feel the sites of the place you're
:06:55. > :07:00.standing in. It offers amazing opportunities. With a firefighter
:07:01. > :07:06.one, it enables you to be there with someone, see how they do their job
:07:07. > :07:11.and being with them. It is be there, or be them. Is there at different
:07:12. > :07:18.audience, one that does not watch bulletins and just watches things on
:07:19. > :07:21.the website? Were at the stage now where we have not worked out,
:07:22. > :07:26.really, how you would deliver this regularly to an audience. It is
:07:27. > :07:30.still highly experimental. We are starting to understand the stories
:07:31. > :07:36.that benefit from it. It is early days. The BBC has developed content
:07:37. > :07:41.for mobile phones, when they were to deliver news but only 2 million
:07:42. > :07:47.people have VR headsets and the BBC is spending lots of money developing
:07:48. > :07:51.stuff for them. Is that smart money at this stage? We're not spending a
:07:52. > :07:54.lot of money, we are investigating it and seeing what audience benefits
:07:55. > :07:59.we can achieve through it. There would be no point in the BBC
:08:00. > :08:03.spending lots of money until there is an audience for it. But it is a
:08:04. > :08:07.chicken and egg thing. If we can find extraordinary ways to tell
:08:08. > :08:11.stories using VR that allows people to step in, and understand the world
:08:12. > :08:16.in completely new ways, that is completely justifiable. That film
:08:17. > :08:20.about the refugee experience, which has won awards, I wonder how many
:08:21. > :08:24.ordinary people have actually seen it. They work, yet, but eventually
:08:25. > :08:30.more people will be able to. That was a very early prototype, to see
:08:31. > :08:35.whether you could, through virtual reality, put people in a place where
:08:36. > :08:39.they would see what it was like to be refugees, trying to travel across
:08:40. > :08:44.the Mediterranean in the boat with them, feeling the splashes of the
:08:45. > :08:47.waves, passing by the boat, and feeling the terror as they try to
:08:48. > :08:51.cross the sea. That is what it was trying to achieve. That was a
:08:52. > :08:57.reconstruction based report. If you are filming in 360, you get privacy
:08:58. > :09:01.issues and whether distressing images might be caught up. You have
:09:02. > :09:05.control of what you might be filming. Absolutely. There will be
:09:06. > :09:09.lots of things we have to address as this technology develops. They are
:09:10. > :09:13.not much different from a reporter filming something on a mobile phone,
:09:14. > :09:16.it is just that it is all very round, and you might be filming
:09:17. > :09:19.things that you don't even see as you film them and you are in the
:09:20. > :09:23.spotlight when you're editing them. In the rush to give an immersive
:09:24. > :09:30.experience, which is what lots of social media does, things like
:09:31. > :09:34.periscope, is the BBC throwing away the editorial decision-making that
:09:35. > :09:39.distinguishes BBC news? Most foreign reporters get excited about VR
:09:40. > :09:43.because one of the missions of the BBC in the end is to help people
:09:44. > :09:46.understand what is going on in the world. And so, if you go back to
:09:47. > :09:52.those presuppose what we are all about, and work out how VR or 360
:09:53. > :09:59.enables you to achieve those, I don't think those issues will be so
:10:00. > :10:02.difficult. Finally, while we are looking to the future, the better
:10:03. > :10:09.Stephen Hawking was taking the long view on Sunday when he spoke to us
:10:10. > :10:13.at head of a conference to mark his 75th birthday. In an exclusive
:10:14. > :10:19.interview with BBC News, Professor Hawking told me he was worried about
:10:20. > :10:23.the future of our species. What is your view on President Trump's
:10:24. > :10:26.decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, and what impact
:10:27. > :10:32.do you think that will have on the future of the planet? We're getting
:10:33. > :10:39.the point where warming becomes irreversible. Trump's actions could
:10:40. > :10:47.boost the Earth over a bridge with as becoming the plan of Venus with a
:10:48. > :10:50.temperature of 250 degrees, and it's raining sulphuric acid. The decision
:10:51. > :10:56.to run that at the end of the bulletin on Sunday at Robert
:10:57. > :11:01.McCartney. He rang us to say why. Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest
:11:02. > :11:05.physicists of all time, gave an interview to the BBC in which he
:11:06. > :11:10.virtually said, the end of the world is nigh, because we're close to the
:11:11. > :11:15.tipping point at which global warming, we won't be able to stop it
:11:16. > :11:22.and we could end up becoming another Venus. And you put it as a minor
:11:23. > :11:32.item at the end of the news. Things are grim. You know, you're treating
:11:33. > :11:37.it as a minor item on the news! Thank you for all your comments this
:11:38. > :11:42.week. If you want to share your comments on BBC News and current
:11:43. > :11:45.affairs or appear on the programme, you can get in touch with those...
:11:46. > :12:01.-- with us. And if you ever miss an edition of
:12:02. > :12:05.the programme you can catch up with it on the BBC iPlayer or through our
:12:06. > :12:09.website. That's all from us. We'll be back to hear your thoughts about
:12:10. > :12:13.BBC News coverage again in the next week. Goodbye.