02/02/2018 Newswatch

This week - is the BBC's coverage

of President Trump too

negative and too excessive?

Hello and welcome to Newswatch

with me, Samira Ahmed.

With the Prime Minister

on an important trade mission

to China, did the BBC's political

editor ask the wrong questions?

And how well has the BBC

reported on President Trump

and his first year in power?

The purpose of the Prime Minister's

trip to China this week

was to promote trade.

But at a news conference

on Wednesday, the BBC's political

editor Laura Kuenssberg had matters

closer to home on her mind.

To get things done, leaders

have to be able to lead.

The Prime Minister

says she will fight on

but concedes something has to shift.

Prime Minister, on the journey here,

you acknowledged that you

and your Government have to do

more to be convincing.

What is it that you plan

to do differently

and will you stand

up to your critics?

Several viewers felt

that was not the time and place

for such a question.

Barbara Fierek put it like this:

"Laura Kuenssberg asked

Mrs May a question

in front of the major

media reporters of the world

regarding her cabinet's

loyalty and disarray.

I felt it was very undermining

for her to use that opportunity

to have a dig very publicly

at Theresa May's party,

and it was not appropriate

to the occasion.

Surely her job was to

report on the visit."

And Paul Smith added:

On Friday, Laura Kuenssberg

pursued the same theme

in an interview

with the Prime Minister.

People are asking you

again and again

to be clearer about your priorities.

How long can you stay

on, do you believe?

Well, let's be very,

very clear about this.

I've set out what my vision is.

I've set out and I've

said to people that at every stage

where we can fill

in the detail,

we will do

so and that's exactly...

But how long can you stay on?

That line of questioning

prompted more complaints,

including this from Tony Webb:

On Tuesday night, Donald Trump

addressed a joint session

of the United States Congress

in his first State of the Union

address, just over 12 months

since he took office.

To say it's been a newsworthy

and controversial first year

as President is something

of an understatement.

The weightiest issues on the planet

were discussed

at Donald Trump's inaugural address,

but what the president

is in a white rage about

are suggestions that the crowds

forhim weren't as big as they were

for Barack Obama eight years ago,

even though the evidence

is incontrovertible.

Many people around

the world will be saddened

and sickened to see

the president of the United States

appearing to validate tweets

from a far-right group.

Ten months into this

unorthodox and provocative

presidency, Donald Trump still has

the capacity to shock.

And it wasn't until I became

a politician that I realised

how nasty, how mean,

how vicious and how fake

the press can be

as the cameras start going off

in the background.

That antagonistic relationship

with the press has been caused,

in the opinion of some Newswatch

viewers, by relentlessly negative

reporting on the part

of much of the media,

including the BBC.

Here's Paul McTigue:

Others detect what they feel

is an obsession with reporting

on President Trump,

bordering on an addiction.

For Tim Weston:

And Gillian Jones agreed there

was too much Trump trivia on air:

Well, one person who has spent

much of the past year

following Donald Trump's presidency

is Nick Bryant,

based in New York but joining us

today from Washington.

Welcome to Newswatch, Nick.

Trump has been called

the great disruptor

and one wonders how much

of a disrupter he's been to the way

the BBC reports from America.

Well, I don't know.

I don't think we've ever had

a president who has given

such a volume of news

at such a high velocity.

It begins very early

in the morning, as it did today

with a presidential tweet,

quite an extraordinary

presidential tweet

this time, attacking

the leadership of the FBI

and the justice department.

And often, it ends the day

with a midnight tweet

which can be equally extraordinary,

as was the case a few weeks ago

when he announced that he wasn't

going to be coming to London.

Well, you've dived straight into one

of the issues that viewers do bring

up which is Trump's use of Twitter

and, I must say, Newswatch viewers

do regularly complain that the BBC,

they feel, jumps to broadcast every

tweet and that you should be far

more judicious

in what you choose to report.

Have they got a point?

I promise you,

we don't publish every single tweet

and we don't react

to every single tweet either.

But, of course, Twitter

has become a primary medium

to communicate with the

American people and, of course,

a lot of his tweets are incredibly

newsworthy.

He has announced policy

on Twitter, like the ban

on transgender people

in the US military.

That took his defence

chiefs by surprise.

A lot of his diplomacy has been

conducted on Twitter.

So when a tweet is newsworthy,

we report it and, obviously,

some of his retweets

are newsworthy as well,

as was the case when he retweeted

Britain First.

Yes.

One of the main criticisms we also

get is that coverage is too focused

on him personally and

negatively and you mentioned

his diplomacy via Twitter, well,

the policy with North Korea

arguably seems to be bearing fruit.

You know, the economy

is doing well

and has the BBC been too negative?

I think we've made

the point in recent times

that it does seem that that tough

stance towards North Korea

has borne fruit.

You know, you've had

the North Koreans taking part

in the Winter Olympics,

for instance.

I think at the year anniversary,

we stressed how well

the economy is doing right now.

Look, I think it's really important

to tell all of the story

of the Trump administration and,

often, you get a very different view

in Washington, where I am today,

from New York

or elsewhere in the country.

And there, there are an awful lot

of people who think that what

Donald Trump is doing

is absolutely great

and they sent him to Washington

to disrupt Washington and he's doing

just that and I think that's

an important part of the story.

From the point of view

of British viewers, perhaps

it's unfair to ask you,

sometimes they feel that

Trump and what he's doing

or saying or what his supporters

are saying and thinking gets

an awful lot of airtime

and I know that your job

is to provide news and you don't

make all the editorial decisions,

but do you get a sense that Trump

is maybe sort of taking over

the news agenda more than he should

because he is,

dare I say it, entertaining?

Look, I think that's one

of the great challenges of covering

Donald Trump is that he does tend

to set the agenda

an awful lot with these

early morning tweets.

I do think there is,

you know, legitimacy

in the criticism that, you know,

we can be a little bit

to reactive to some

of the tweets

and that we should be

setting our own agenda

and following our own path.

And we do try and do that.

You know, one of the things that

I've been keen to do recently

is to show the effectiveness of the

Trump administration in many ways.

I mean, it has set about a very

ambitious deregulatory programme

and, in many ways,

it has achieved that.

Trump has seemed to

come across as more

conciliatory in tone

in recent weeks.

You know, in Davos, the State

of the Union address.

Is there a sense that the BBC

might have failed to

recognise that in its

reporting of him?

I don't think so.

Watching the coverage

of the State of the Union address,

I think that point was made,

that Trump did make some

conciliatory moves on immigration.

But at the same time, I mean, that

speech was a highly partisan speech.

This is going to be a highly

political and a highly partisan year

because the mid-term

elections are coming up in November

when the make-up of Congress

will be decided again.

The politicisation of virtually

everything is going to be

a feature of this year.

On the media, President

Trump, it's very clear,

has been very aggressive

towards the news media, the ones

that he doesn't like or appears not

to like, including the BBC.

How have you been dealing with that?

Practically, how does it affect you?

Well, Donald Trump almost declared

war on the media

from the very get-go.

I mean, his initial sort

of onslaught was about the media's

reporting of that

inauguration crowd.

You probably remember

that on the first full

day of his presidency.

He has described the media

as enemies of the people,

he keeps on saying that a lot

of the media is fake news.

You know, my view is that

it's a mistake for the media

to sort of declare war back.

You know, I just think we should be

doing our jobs and we should just be

reporting on the facts

and we shouldn't be drawn

into that kind of combat

and that kind of battle.

We should just do

what we have always done

with presidents

of the United States,

whether they are Democrat

or whether they are Republican.

Nick Bryant, thank you so much.

Finally, on Thursday,

LT Greenwood contacted us to ask:

That question was prompted

by a report from Nina Warhurst about

former Chancellor George Osborne's

call for more funding

for the Northern Powerhouse project.

Six years old and the

future mapped out.

Children in Darlington do well

at primary level, but come GCSEs

and getting jobs, their life

chances slide dramatically.

If building a powerhouse

means making the North

a global economic force,

something isn't quite adding up.

Today, this former Chancellor

was hitting out

at the current one.

The Government says

it has stepped up by

increasing investment,

but they're also pleading for

increasing investment, but they're

also pleading for patience.

It's a complicated equation.

More Government money

plus more business

investment could equal 850,000

new jobs in the north by 2050.

But can the maths add up?

LT Greenwood's email to us went on:

Thanks for all your

comments this week.

If you want to share your opinions

on BBC news and current affairs,

or even appear on the programme,

you can call us on

0370 010 6676 or email.

You can find us on Twitter

@newswatchbbc, and do have a look

at our website.

The address for that is

bbc.co.uk/newswatch.

That's all from us.

We'll be back to hear your thoughts

about BBC News

coverage again next week.

Goodbye.