16/03/2018 Newswatch

All in positive territory tonight.

Now it's time for Newswatch,

with Samira Ahmed.

This week, BBC coverage

of child abuse in Telford

is under the spotlight.

Hello, and welcome to Newswatch

with me, Samira Ahmed.

Was the BBC too slow to report

claims that up to 1,000 children

in Telford may have been victims

of abuse by grooming gangs

of mainly Pakistani heritage?

And, as calls are made

for the Kremlin-backed TV station

Russia Today to be taken off the air

in Britain, should Question Time

have chosen one of its

presenters as a guest?

First, the nerve agent attack

on Sergei Skripal and his daughter

Yulia continued to dominate the news

agenda this week, raising many

questions for BBC News.

One was the extent to

which Theresa May's unequivocal

statement that Russia was culpable

for the attack should be taken

on trust or challenged.

Some members of the audience felt

the BBC had erred too much

in the former direction,

with Derek Culson writing...

And George Skinner agreed.

The Prime Minister announced

on Wednesday a number of measures

to be taken against Russia,

but not one that had been widely

to be taken against Russia -

but not one that had been widely

mooted, taking the television

station Russia Today

off the air in the UK.

The broadcaster is widely regarded

as a mouthpiece for the Kremlin,

which made the choice of one

of the panellists on BBC

One's Question Time

a surprise to some people.

A broadcaster with the

Russian-funded TV channel RT,

and presenter of a weekly current

affairs programme on that

channel, Afshin Rattansi.

That guest booking was already

causing concern before the programme

went out on Thursday,

with Matthew Holbert tweeting...

And Dan watched the

programme and wondered...

It's not the first time journalists

from Russia Today have

appeared on BBC News,

and we asked the BBC whether it was

appropriate for them to do so.

They told us...

The Russian theme continued that

evening, as Newsnight on BBC Two ran

an item which irked some viewers,

not so much for its content

as for the studio background.

Did Jeremy Corbyn misread the mood

of his party in the Commons

yesterday when he refused to point

the finger at Russia?

Last night, a group of Labour

backbenchers said it unequivocally.

They accept the Russian state's

culpability for the spy poisoning.

Some people felt the photograph

of Jeremy Corbyn in a Russian-style

hat surrounded by a red picture

of the Kremlin portrayed

the Labour leader as

a collaborator with Moscow.

Susan was one of them,

and recorded this video for us.

I felt compelled to contact

you regarding the Newsnight

programme last night.

And the portrayal of

Jeremy Corbyn in some

kind of a Russian hat

next

to a portrayal of the Kremlin.

I feel that this is a very biased

depiction of the man,

and those more gullible in society

will absolutely associate Jeremy

Corbyn with Russia and Russians.

I'm only interested in justice

and honesty, and I don't

see any of that here.

Very disappointed.

Now, last weekend, the Sunday Mirror

said it had uncovered written

Britain's worst ever

child grooming scandal,

with claims that up to 1,000 girls

had been abused since the 1980s.

Over the next two days,

other newspapers followed

that up extensively.

But there was only limited

mentions on BBC News.

Scores of people wondered why -

with one of them, David,

leaving us this phone message

on Tuesday morning.

Hi, I woke up this morning

to the horrific stories

about the child abuse in Telford,

so I thought I'd go

on to the BBC app,

which I use regularly.

And lo and behold, there

was nothing about it.

You've got five stories

in the website.

There's one about pork pies

and one about the danger

of Chinese takeaways.

Are you going to cover this scandal?

The BBC was accused in the press

of ignoring the story,

and Adam Paulson agreed, writing...

Andrew e-mailed...

Well, on Tuesday, the Victoria

Derbyshire Show interviewed a victim

of child exploitation in Telford.

But it wasn't until Wednesday that

BBC One bulletins ran

a report on the subject,

from Sima Kotecher.

Night-time in Telford.

Recent reports say up to 1,000

girls could have been

sexually abused in the town

over the last four decades.

The police here say

at the moment they are dealing

with less than 50 cases.

For many, the BBC's reaction

was to little, too late.

Trevor Bell thought...

And Robert tweeted this question...

Well, let's put that

to James Stevenson,

the BBC's News Editor,

who joins me now.

Can we start with...

The story broke

in the Sunday Mirror.

When did the BBC national news think

it was worth reporting?

So, immediately we could see

that it was a good and strong piece

of journalism by the Sunday Mirror.

And it was widely covered

in our paper review on the Sunday.

And we saw it was a story

that we needed to follow up,

and we began to do that.

As early as Monday morning,

the Victoria Derbyshire Programme

was leading its output

on this story.

And later that day, The World at One

interviewed the leader

of Telford Council to challenge him

about

what was going on.

Which is radio.

We quickly saw it was a story that

needed to be covered,

and that it needed our original

reporting effort to follow up,

and that's what we did.

We heard from a viewer who said

he used the news app.

I was wondering, when did

the story appear on the front

page of the website?

There was a story on

the website on Monday.

That was on the England index.

There were various developments

in the story as the week has gone

on, I'm sure you've seen

and the viewers have seen how

the story has developed.

So, the initial suggestion was that

possibly 1,000 victims.

That was based not on hard

information, but on an extrapolation

based on work with an academic.

So, we pursued it.

And we waited the story.

We look at it in depth.

It's probably worth saying,

to address your point directly,

that we're in the middle of this

huge spy drama and scandal,

the poisoning scandal in Salisbury,

and that's consumed a huge amount

of our airtime, as has

the death of Ken Dodd,

and then later in the week Stephen

Hawking.

Even in a busy news period,

this has been an exceptionally busy

news week, and we've tried to cover

the Telford story in the mix amongst

all of the other things

that we've been doing.

Audiences would say,

a really busy news week, this

is a really important new story.

That's certainly true.

And I'd like to sort of challenge

an idea that I think probably

viewers might be left

with by the sequence

they've just seen.

This is a scandal that's been

unfolding in Telford over many

years, and we have been covering it

in great depth and with great

prominence during that time.

So, the Operation Chalice

brought to life the scale

of abusing in Telford.

There was then the criminal

prosecution, which saw seven men

being sent to prison

a few years ago.

So, we have consistently been

reporting this story as it's gone

along, and we've done

so again this week.

The TV bulletins are where millions

of people go expecting to be told

told what are the big,

important stories, and it wasn't

until Wednesday, three days later,

that there was a report

about Telford on the

national bulletins.

Why?

So, it was covered in brief

on the News at Ten on Tuesday night.

A 15-second read...

As I've explained, we've got a very

busy news period and there's

a limited number of

stories we can cover.

The reason it became a network TV

bulletin story on Wednesday was

because of partly our journalism.

So, we interviewed the police

in Telford, we interviewed

a social worker in Telford,

it was raised at prime

a social worker in Telford,

it was raised at Prime Minister's

Minister's Questions,

and the Prime Minister

reacted to it.

Even, as I say, in this busy

period, that obviously

deserved the attention

it got in the main TV

bulletins that day.

You will know what BBC viewers

are saying, and we've had hundreds

of complaints into the BBC,

it's that it looked like the BBC

felt awkward giving

this story prominence

because it was about white victims

and Pakistani-heritage abuses.

I know that's a view

that some people hold,

I really don't think it's the case.

We've done a great deal of coverage

of this area of abuse and this

terrible story in Telford,

but also elsewhere in the country.

The BBC has just won

a Royal Television Society Wward

for the excellent documentary,

incredible documentary,

about abuse in the north-east

of England based around Newcastle.

That was the second story in the TV

news three weeks ago.

So, we've done a great deal

of work on Rotherham,

on a lot of this stuff initially,

when this terrible situation came

more fully to light.

So, we've certainly committed

to covering what is a harrowing

and terrible story, and we've done

it consistently over time.

You will know, as Newswatch

has debated it before,

but coverage of the previous

grooming scandals with this racial

element, viewers every time

feel the BBC runs shy

of reporting stories prominently.

Do you think the BBC needs

to have a rethink about how it runs

and reports on these stories?

No, I think we are doing the right

thing and I think we are very

determined to get to these terrible

and dark and difficult

stories, not just this one,

but across the whole range.

What I do think is true

to say is that before

the full nature and scale

of what was going on in Bodrum

and Rochdale and Oxford

and other places came out,

there was not as great

an understanding of how, you know,

profound a problem

and how deep this ran.

So, if you go back a decade,

I think you can definitely say this

story or this issue didn't get

the attention it probably

deserved at that point,

that is something everyone

has had to reflect on.

James Stevenson, thank you.

Thanks for your comments this week.

If you want to share your opinions

on BBC News, current affairs,

or even appear on the programme,

you can call us.

Or you can e-mail Newswatch.

You can find us on Twitter,

@NewswatchBBC.

And do have a look at our website.

That's all from us.

We'll be back to hear your

thoughts about BBC News

coverage again next week.