10/11/2017 Newswatch

This week Samira Ahmed

hears viewers' comments

on the Paradise Papers.

Hello and welcome to Newswatch

with me, Samira Ahmed.

A huge leak of financial

documents dominated BBC News

at the start of this week.

Did they deserve all that

attention, or was this

journalistic self-indulgence?

And did the BBC unfairly suggest

wrongdoing on the part

of politicians, royalty

and celebrities when

they had broken no laws?

Another week, another departure

from Theresa May's cabinet.

Pressure had been building

on Priti Patel since the emergence

last Friday of her undisclosed

meetings while on holiday in Israel.

But was some of that pressure

imposed in an unwarranted way

by the media, particularly the BBC,

which broke the story?

Yes, according to Andy Ramsbottom,

who asked:

And Keith Brown thought:

The long predicted end came

for Priti Patel after her hastily

arranged journey home from Africa,

monitored at one point by 22,000

people on a flight tracking website,

as shown on the BBC News Channel.

That prompted Ian Miller to tweet:

While a user called Kubrick's Lens

Cap thought:

When the soon-to-be ex-International

Development secretary

reached Heathrow Airport,

the coverage switched from flight

tracker to helicopter camera,

and the complaints continued.

Here's Roy Ramm:

It was a huge

information dump,

the leak of over

13 million documents,

worked on for a year by almost 100

different media organisations.

A lot of work clearly went

into the so-called Paradise Papers,

and despite it being a busy news

week as well, the BBC gave

the story a lot of airtime.

Tonight on Panorama,...

It started at 6pm on Sunday

with a Panorama special,

and more than half of the News

at Ten was dedicated to the subject,

pushing a report of the Texas

shooting and new allegations

against Damian Green

down the running order.

On Monday, there was another

hour-long Panorama special,

watched by Neil Spellings:

Immediatedly following Panorama

was the BBC News at ten o'clock.

This dedicated the first half

of the show, so 15 minutes,

covering exactly the same topics

that had just been shown immediately

previous to the news by Panorama.

I thought it was a strange editorial

decision to repeat so much content

immediately adjacent to programmes,

especially when the news

were using the same clips

of Richard Bilton doorstepping

celebrities outside the studios,

and with the same infographics

and pretty much everything.

It was like a Panorama-lite

for 15 minutes.

The Paradise Papers also

led BBC One bulletins

for a third night on Tuesday,

ahead of the death of Welsh

politician Carl Sargeant

and the ongoing travails

of Boris Johnson and Priti Patel.

So was the big investigation worth

the prominence given to it?

Not according to scores of viewers,

including Paul Titley,

who asked:

Others targeted in the

investigation, or hounded

as several viewers saw it,

were actors from Mrs Brown's Boys,

Conservative Party donor

Lord Ashcroft, US commerce

Secretary Wilbur Ross and Formula 1

driver Lewis Hamilton.

The latter case prompted Sandra

Lipscomb to record this video.

I was really incensed

the other morning, listening

about Lewis Hamilton

and his avoidance of VAT.

All of us, no matter

who we are, it's human nature.

If we can save a few

pennies, we will.

Why aren't they going,

or you going after the likes

of these financial experts,

who are being paid lots

of money by celebrities

to help save them money?

And also, HMRC.

They need some whizzkids to sort

out these loopholes.

With me now to explore coverage

of the Paradise Papers story

is James Stephenson,

news editor for BBC News.

Welcome to Newswatch.

We kept hearing the phrase "none

of this is illegal",

so who exactly were you targeting

in this investigation?

Well, it's perhaps worth saying

that, as you and many of your

listeners will know,

this was an enormous project over

a long timespan and only began

with the leak of the documents.

After that, there was a great deal

of journalistic work to sift

through and identify stories

that we should be doing,

and not just do stories

because names were found in papers.

We applied a very rigorous public

interest test above and beyond

"Is it interesting?"

to the stories we

decided to take on.

Which was?

It varied from case to case,

and that was part of the complexity

that the Panorama team and the wider

news operation had to work through.

Each case was somewhat different,

but where people were simply, to use

that phrase, avoiding tax,

we didn't think that

that was in itself a reason

to include them in our coverage.

If it was aggressive tax avoidance

or if it was tax evasion,

or if there were some other big

public interest element,

we felt that was the reason why

we would do a story rather

than leave it to one side.

Of course, tax evasion is illegal

whereas tax avoidance,

even at the blurry line, is legal.

Why didn't you focus just

on the firms and advisers, instead

of tarnishing the reputation

of, say, the Queen?

I think we did do that.

We obviously thought carefully

about what was a story and how

we should present the story

and whether it was newsworthy.

As you saw, we concluded

that it was.

The most newsworthy thing

was that these tax havens

around the world had had

all their documents from this

company, Appleby, but also

from the company registers

in these places revealed.

And we felt that that was in itself

a big story worthy of reporting.

We then moved on to reporting

individual cases where we felt

there were controversial issues

to be raised or issues of public

interest to be considered.

One of the other issues which came

up is that it has been

a very busy news week.

The biggest complaint we got was how

much airtime this got,

sometimes half of a bulletin

when there

were important stories such

as the Foreign Secretary's comments

about a British citizen

in an Iranian jail.

We feel we have done justice

to those other stories as well.

It's part of the nature of news

and part of the nature of BBC News

that we often have to do several

very big stories at one time.

It is worth saying that

the Priti Patel story

was broken by James Landale,

our diplomatic correspondent.

So it wasn't that we focused

all our energies on one

story and not on others.

But we did feel that this long

investigation with these

high-profile companies

and individuals was worthy

of the time we gave it.

We also gave some additional

airtime to two things.

One was to put into broader context

what tax havens are,

how they have grown

up over the century,

so people will have seen,

on Sunday night,

our economics editor Kamal Ahmed

stepping through that.

And we also had reaction.

We had an interview with Wilbur Ross

after the revelation.

So it wasn't just the

original journalism.

We were also doing the context

and the follow-up.

We can tell that it was a huge,

coordinated news operation

with international partners.

It even had its own

hashtag, Paradise Papers.

Again, viewers feel that in the end,

this wasn't the big scoop that

you are claiming and the amount

of coverage was self-indulgent.

People will have to judge

that for themselves.

I think different viewers will have

different views on that.

If you take one example, Apple,

Apple is the biggest

company in the world,

and we've revealed where it

places its funding,

effectively its wealth, offshore.

Where did the papers come from?

We actually don't know.

In one sense, we do.

They came from Appleby originally,

which is this law firm which has

offices in these various tax havens.

It came into the possession

of Suddeutsche Zeitung,

a German newspaper.

They then collaborated with the

ICIJ,

the International Consortium

of Investigative Journalists,

and BBC Panorama is one

of the partners among 100

partners in that consortium.

But we don't know how

the leak happened.

Are you comfortable with that?

Some viewers feel it is unethical

for the BBC to publish them.

We are.

We have taken the decision

that there is a public interest,

but it takes us back to the point

I'm making, which is that we haven't

simply published what is in those

documents, we have gone

through a lengthy journalistic,

editorial and legal process

including right to reply

by the people concerned,

to establish that we think

there is a public interest

above and beyond simply the fact

that people

appear in these papers.

Is there a risk to the BBC's

values if it partners

in this way in future, do you think?

I don't.

We didn't subcontract our editorial

judgments to the ICIJ.

They have done an outstanding job

in corralling this group

of investigative journalists,

something that a few years ago

would have seemed a very improbable

thing for investigative journalism.

But we have made our own editorial

decisions about which stories

we thought we should do,

which we thought were justified.

If we didn't think they met

the standards of what we wanted

to broadcast, we didn't put them out

on any of our platforms.

James Stephenson, thank you.

Finally, a very unusual

picture appeared on the

BBC News website on Monday.

This anonymous caller

describes what she saw

and what she thought of it.

Hello, I've been increasingly

frustrated by the dumbing down

of the BBC News web pages.

I finally reached the limit

when I looked and saw an item

which was "My dog looks

like Donald Trump's face".

I think you're just trying to appeal

to masses and dumbing down.

If people want to read that stuff,

they can read it elsewhere.

That is not what BBC News

is for and I hope you get that

message loud and clear

from other people too.

Thank you for your

comments this week.

If you want to share your opinions

on BBC News and current affairs

or even appear on the programme,

you call us or e-mail us.

You can find us on Twitter,

and do have a look at our website

for previous discussions.

That's all from us.

We'll be back to hear your

thoughts about BBC News

coverage again next week.

Goodbye.