Archives for October 2007

The appearance on YouTube of footage taken by a camera phone during a case at the High Court in Glasgow brought into sharp focus what I believe to be a significant dilemma for the BBC.

The clip showed three young men, who later admitted beating a man to death, in the dock. The judge is seen in the background.

The video had been entitled: “The troops in the high court” and there were accompanying posts boasting about the killing.

The story first appeared on the front page of a Scottish newspaper and was followed up by many media outlets, the BBC News website among them.

The issue for us was whether or not we should provide a link directly to the video on YouTube.

On one hand, we should - providing we’d undertaken sufficient checks to ensure that the video was in fact genuine. But if we’d been able to establish that, would we have come close to colluding with a criminal or criminals? Section 9 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 makes it an offence to use in court any sound recording instrument “except with the leave of the court to do so”.

The video is pivotal to the story therefore we should direct readers to it, so this argument goes. Part of the BBC’s online remit is to provide clear signposts to other web content. If we don’t provide the link, the reader will ask why it’s not there and go straight to YouTube to find it (not always an easy task).

On the other hand, we shouldn’t. Again, assuming that the video is genuine, clearly a crime had been committed and would a link from the BBC News website have a) made it appear that we were “conspiring” with the commission of that crime and/or b) tacitly endorsing the crime and glorifying it by saying: “Here it is, come and click on it!”?

In these circumstances, is our disclaimer: “The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites” below links on stories sufficient to distance ourselves from any criticism?

There are legal and moral questions here. The former is about the recording and storing of the video, the latter is about the BBC being seen as a publicly-funded stage on which law-breakers can perform.

In this case, we took the view based partly on legal advice from a BBC lawyer in Glasgow that we should not link to the video. I think that was the right decision, taking into account the reaction of the mother of the dead man. She described the footage as “sickening”.

We did not include it in our television news coverage of the story either. STV, the commercial channel in Scotland, made extensive use of it.

We have to bear in mind an increasingly complex set of factors as the internet generation becomes more sophisticated, and sometimes the BBC will have to be brave in rejecting what other media outlets perceive as a “good” story if it breaches our Editorial Guidelines.

I recently turned down a reporter’s offer to write a story about a clip appearing to show the dashboard of a performance car being driven at 155mph on a road in Scotland notorious for accidents. It seemed a clear-cut case of glorifying speed and encouraging others to try the same feat.

The story later appeared in a newspaper. Was I wrong to knock it back? Discuss.

As a final thought on the same subject, we’re seeing an increasing use of Facebook and other social networking sites following fatalities involving young people. Their friends post tributes and the media lift the words and pictures for our reports. Simply because information has been published into the public domain does that make it acceptable for the media to exploit its existence?

It raises the public/private question as well as the issue of copyright ownership. There are bald legal answers but perhaps the most difficult area to negotiate is the moral one, where there are not only “black and whites” of opinions but many shades of grey in between.

Have we got too many dinosaurs? Have we got enough children’s voices? Does a story about eczema in the UK matter to youngsters in Tanzania? The kind of questions we’re tackling every day with BBC World News for Children. It’s a new audio news service for a new audience – children in the UK and around the world.

The bulletin grew out of the World Class project, which facilitates school twinning around the world. We realised that we could help twinning schools share ideas and communication by providing them with a “missing link”: shared News.

Radio News agreed to place an audio producer with Newsround. The result is a bulletin for kids in the UK, which goes out every morning Monday to Friday at 0756 on BBC7, and a slightly longer bulletin posted on the World Class and Newsround websites by lunchtime, with more international stories.

We work on the assumption that what interests kids in one part of the world is likely to be of interest to kids elsewhere. We try to tell it in a simple way but not shy away from some of the harder stories. We’re also trying to extend Newsround’s successful press packer format to kids all over the world.

So far the responses from kids themselves have been positive – we put up their comments on the Newsround website. But we’re keen to get more kids listening and sending in their audio reports – for more details have a look at our site.

There are big challenges - especially where children have poor access to the internet – but in a world with two billion people under 18 – that’s a massive audience to serve.

You may have seen that the BBC News website is celebrating its tenth anniversary. It's been an amazing time of growth in the new medium of the internet, and I and my colleagues who have been working here count ourselves privileged to have experienced it at first hand.

There's also an irony in the timing of the anniversary, since you might also have seen reports that in the current reorganisation of the BBC, the department which has produced the news website - BBC News Interactive - will cease to exist.

That is true, but it's part of a much bigger story and one which is cause for optimism for those who have an affection for this website.

BBC News is to launch a new multimedia newsroom, which will provide news for television, radio and the web. So even though our department ceases to exist in its current form, so do the TV News and Radio News departments. In their place will be the multimedia newsroom, along with a newsgathering and a programmes department - both also multimedia in their focus. This is a big shift in the BBC's thinking, and reflects what is happening elsewhere in the industry. There are those who argue we should have done it already - and for the website there are clear benefits.

We recognise that there are risks, though. From my point of view, I am concerned that the editorial coherence of the news website should not be sacrificed in the name of efficiency. To prevent this, I've identified a number of practical measures - staffing, meetings, training and editorial accountability, etc - which have been embraced as part of the reorganisation process.

It would be wrong to think we're being defensive here - in fact the reorganisation is a fantastic opportunity for the website to better reflect the best of what BBC News can offer. We know that more people are turning to the internet to find out the news, and we are as determined as ever to make sure that our website is the best place in the world for them to do so - for another 10 years and more.

One of the biggest changes in the BBC over the next few years - the move to Salford - didn't get much comment when Mark Thompson announced his change plan ten days ago.

Naturally most of the attention was focused on job losses. But for 5live, Salford is looming larger all the time. Our assumption now is that all the programmes will move - that's the way to create a more editorially cohesive and efficient radio station. With that in mind we've looked at how the news summaries and headlines are provided for the network, and we've concluded that the summaries have to be compiled on site by 5live's own team.

The logic for that seems inescapable but it's a decision that has a profound impact on a venerable section of BBC News - the Radio Newsroom. Up to now, the summaries on 5live have been provided by the Radio Newsroom, which makes the news for most other national networks, including Radio Four and Radio Two.

This is not an easy change for us to make, and we've got to tread carefully; the last thing we want is to duplicate the work of the Radio Newsroom. But we have to start preparing for the change now. For some it will mean big changes and there are also some big opportunities.

For the station it's a chance to make a new statement about our commitment to vibrant, comprehensive news coverage. Our aim is that whatever the scale of the internal changes, 5live's listeners will still get the news service they want and trust.

Many thanks for your comments - we take note of all of them.

In response to two of the mostfrequently made points:

• We do intend to offer a subscription service for international users in the next year. However this will sit alongside the ad-supported service - so subscription-paying users will not see ads if they are logged in, but will do if not logged in. Most news organisations who have adopted a subscription only service are closing them in favour of ads. We would like to offer both, but have to ensure the business plan is robust and we have to undertake some further technical work before we can offer this.

• For UK licence fee payers who wish to access the ad-free site when abroad I'm afraid we don’t yet have reliable technology which would enable this. As with TV, for example, the BBC internet site will be ad-supported when viewed outside the UK.

BBC.com will be launching later this month.

Many of you have been writing in to complain about problems getting through both on the Editors' blog and on the Newsnight blog pages. I sympathise. Often I try to respond to a comment or complaint about the programme and end up gnawing my knuckles in frustration as the response either doesn't appear for many hours or fails to materialise at all. Hardly the best way to have a free flowing dialogue with our viewers.

Comments to the Editors' blog and the Newsnight blog are actually moderated in different ways, but the simple fact is that neither is currently working nearly well enough. In addition to the long-term problems we've had, this week things were made more difficult by pretty catastrophic technical problems here at the BBC which made publishing anything on the blogs - and on several other parts of the BBC website - impossible. Those particular problems are now sorted, but of course that doesn't mean the ongoing ones are over.

I can only say sorry and thanks for the perseverance you've shown so far. I know that the blog team share my frustration and we are determined to get a better system working soon. The good news is that it's in hand.

When we started blogging using our current platform in November 2005, we were using software which was suitable for our ambitions at the time. Over the past two years those ambitions have grown massively, as has the number of you wanting to comment on our blogs (and the amazing amount of spam we get). Next week we are to receive the results of some analysis done for us on how we adapt the software to enable us to meet our current - and future - ambitions. I'll let you know how it goes.

A new report by the International Broadcasting Trust suggests the quality of British TV coverage of the wider world has dipped significantly over the last past two years. Its conclusion is that TV needs to raise its game. The criticism is less about daily news programmes, but more focused on factual programmes. Indeed, the report says news programmes have demonstrated imagination and an appetite for innovation – it warns “other genres – especially documentary and drama – need to be bolder and more ambitious, and seek out new ways of telling international stories”.

Yesterday – as the report was being published in London – BBC News was on both sides of the Turkish/Iraqi border reporting on the tension between Ankara and the PKK – the only UK broadcaster to have both perspectives.

We were in Beijing reporting on the selection of the Politburo and the anointing of the man likely to be China’s next president. And two years after the IBT’s last report criticised the coverage of the developing world, former Africa correspondent Fergal Keane reported on the $5m “good governance” prize awarded to the former president of Mozambique Joaquim Chissano – providing a different perspective on a continent where much of the reporting is characterised by despair and a lack of hope.

News is now a global commodity – the traditional distinction between “domestic” and “international” news is probably less than at any time in the past. The report correctly identifies the globalisation of information – the connections between the tribal areas of Pakistan and the radical Islam, the rise of China driving up costs in the world economy, the impact of human behaviour on climate change. Only by understanding what’s happening in another part of the planet, can you really make sense of what’s going on round the corner.

The BBC has a specific remit in the new Royal Charter to “bring the world to the UK” - the report recommends a more “joined-up” approach to our international coverage using the resources of the World Service and BBC World to help inform the UK audience, and build on existing links between UK communities and the wider world via its Nations and Regions output. We’re already doing some of this. Audiences with digital TV in the UK can already see BBC World at 7pm on BBC Four, and the World Service has plans to improve its multi-media operations in languages relevant to ethnic communities in the UK.

The IBT report is welcome – but read beyond the headlines. International news has a vital place in understanding what’s going on, not just in the UK but around the world.

In this week's Newswatch, the programme which discusses viewers' complaints about BBC News, deputy director general, Mark Byford, answers questions about how planned cuts at the corporation will affect viewers, listeners and readers of BBC News.

You can watch the programme here.

Nicky Campbell was live in Paris this morning - and will be appearing on Drive this afternoon and will present Weekend Breakfast from Paris tomorrow too.

But some e-mailer/texters weren't happy. Broadly they were asking why waste money sending him to Paris - and to add insult to some people's injury - he's Scottish so what's it got to do with him.

I'm the programme editor and there were discussions with the controller of 5live Bob Shennan as soon as England qualified for the final. Last weekend Matt Smith had presented the Breakfast show on Saturday and Sunday from Paris - and we agreed that England's appearance in the final merited similar treatment.

Why? Well, 5live has the rights to commentate on the Rugby World Cup so across the station we've been keen to follow the tournament in detail and give maximum exposure to our coverage. Having a presenter like Nicky enables us to report more effectively on the build-up to the event. This is arguably the biggest sporting event featuring a UK team since the last rugby world cup final.

Having a presenter there enables us to get better guests (people prefer talking face to face), it enables us to have access to fans and hopefully it gives people listening a sense of the atmosphere in the run up to the event. This morning we spoke to Victor Obogu and Brian Moore, to English fans and South Africa supporters. We were able to reflect the level of interest in France and report on the search for tickets.

For those who accuse Nicky of going on a "jolly" you'll be glad to know we are working Nicky as hard as possible. He hasn't got a ticket to the game - and will have to dash back to present his Sunday morning TV programme The Big Questions.

5live programmes aim wherever possible to be live at major news and sports events. We believe it leads to better programmes. This is what the judges of the 2007 Radio Academy Awards said "(5live Breakfast) has a great sense of movement and being "out there" and is the perfect antidote to the normal studio bound fare at that time of day. Its take on sport is unique and, in Nicky Campbell, it has someone who is equally at home as a presenter or a reporter. His snatched interview with Colin Montgomery at The Ryder Cup was one of the broadcasting highlights of the year."

For those worried about the cost, believe me we do our upmost to do these OBs as cheaply as possible and the fact that the final is in Paris means the costs were not excessive.

You can comment on this entry here.

On Newsnight we're used to the occasional bad review in the public prints. We had a stinker this week in the New Statesman, but it included a new and stinging criticism.

Rachel Cooke's piece took me to task for not blogging enough. "Like all BBC programmes", she wrote "it is fighting for its budget and has been told to get interactive, which is enough to make anyone tired (it speaks volumes that Peter Barron, its editor, posts his blog only every ten days or so)."

I'm pretty sure my hit rate is higher than that, but went straight to the New Statesman's blog page to see how it should be done. Maybe I missed it, but I couldn't find a single blog entry by Rachel (although to be fair she has blogged twice - once in 2006 and then again in 2007 - in the Observer) or her editor John Kampfner. There are plenty of different views about the value of blogging - and perhaps you'll let us know what you think the optimum level of regularity should be - but I've never met a blogger yet who was doing it because they'd been told to get interactive.

We've introduced a minor change to the way this blog works. Until earlier this week, the daily record of when the BBC appears in the news has appeared as a separate blog item. Now those details appear in the right hand side of the blog.

On any given day, the BBC is mentioned in literally dozens of articles in the newspapers, and for 18 months now we have been handpicking some of the most interesting. The goal has never been to provide a comprehensive list - if that's what you want, there are ways you can find that on the web. We just pick some of the most notable - and we will continue to do just that, whether or not they are critical of the BBC. Doing it this way, via tagging from del.icio.us, will hopefully provide a more useful service to the online community. If you click on the link at the bottom of the column, marked "bbceditorsblog", you'll see the page on Delicious where the links live, along with an archive. If you use that service, you can add us to your network. You can also add an RSS feed of those stories to your own blog, RSS reader or other page.

Incidentally, we plan to introduce a similar service on some of our correspondent's blogs, where they can highlight articles on the web they have been reading. And from the other perspective, if you want to use del.icio.us (or a number of other services) to bookmark your favourite pages on our website, we recently introduced social bookmarking options on BBC News pages (see this posting from my colleague Paul Brannan), and we hope to do this soon on our blogs.

Just possibly, you might have noticed that this is a big day at the BBC – a day when our vision for the future has been laid out and its consequences in terms of job losses. (You can read an edited version of a speech I gave to the staff of BBC News earlier today.)

Essentially, a reduced licence fee settlement, together with tough efficiency targets, mean that we need to radically change the way we work to best serve our many different audiences. In the biggest overhaul of BBC News in 15 years, we are going to become truly multi-media. You can get an idea of what we have in mind from my speech to the staff of BBC News.

We may be reducing posts in News but we don’t plan to reduce quality. As you can see from our list of investments, we’re putting money into good old-fashioned journalism as well as new services via our web. We treasure our specialist talent because we know their skills, expertise and range of contacts add immeasurably to our authority and distinctiveness.

Under our plan, they all come together to deliver their work in audio, video and online. And our big programmes – Today, Newsnight, Panorama – will continue to deliver their excellent journalism on radio and television but with the best websites we can offer, allowing audiences a truly interactive experience if they want it.

Most change is difficult and at times, painful. Undoubtedly we will not find the implementation of all this to be plain sailing. But standing still is not an option because our audiences are changing and we must change with them. As the brilliant architect of our plan, deputy director of news, Adrian Van-Klaveren, wryly pointed out to me today: “This is just the end of the beginning.”

Read the rest of this entry

Among its decisions about the future of the BBC yesterday, the BBC Trust also approved the launch of BBC.com - which will mean international users of our website will see advertising on selected pages in the near future. There will be no change and no advertising for UK users. BBC.com will encompass all types of content, but news will be at the heart of the site.

There are a number of reasons behind this decision. The bulk of the BBC is funded by the UK licence fee paid by every household with a TV in Britain. However, under the new BBC charter, we are not allowed to use licence fee funding for the benefit of international audiences. The BBC website has a large number of international users and advertising seems to be the obvious way for them to contribute to the costs of the site. In addition, profits from the site will be reinvested in the BBC's journalism and we believe will enable us to more strongly develop the site for international users.

Advertising around BBC News is nothing new for international audiences. BBC World TV news has been a commercial channel since its launch 16 years ago. Some World Service programmes are re-broadcast on commercial FM radio stations. As with both those examples, BBC.com will carry the same public service journalism as it currently offers, but distributed on a commercial platform.

We will not be offering highly intrusive advertising and are taking significant steps to manage any potential conflict of interest between advertisers and editorial content to ensure our journalism is not compromised in any way.

We recognise that some users will be unhappy with this change. However in tests and surveys in advance of this change the majority of international users did not express a strong objection and a majority of those surveyed in the UK agreed with the principle of advertising for international users.

In the first phase, advertising will be introduced, probably next month, on selected high traffic pages visible only to those logging in from outside the UK. In a second phase, advertising will be rolled out across more of the site, again only when viewed from outside the UK.

We are starting a new programme on Radio Four and we need your help. Actually it’s more like an ongoing conversation on the web that will have a programme attached to it once a week. iPM will rely on its audience to help shape the content through a blog. We will source what we do through the best blogs, passionate 'ear catching' online debate as well as comments and recommendations of others. So what ends up on air will be shaped by listeners and bloggers.

Our intention is to distil the very best of the web to produce a new type of programme that is in the best traditions of BBC Radio Four. We'll be as transparent as we can about the ideas and guests that make it to air. Our blog will explain why some ideas and stories get dropped or squeezed out. Also, by posting our rough ideas in front of the audience, we're also inviting the well-informed and blog-savvy to help us develop a particular idea.

So, we're open to all ideas and opinion, alternative takes on stories old and new, and aim to shine a light on issues that are under reported or not considered traditional fare for a news and current affairs programme. With around 61 million blogs, over 125,000 podcasts listed on iTunes and seemingly every office in the UK permanently connected to Facebook we hope we won't want for ideas.

There have been many attempts to find the missing link between old and new media. Think of iPM as a small contribution to that debate. If it fails I can always blame the presenter.

iPM the blog is open for business now. iPM the programme will transmit on Radio Four on 10 November at 1730 but you'll be able to listen on demand whenever you want and there will be a podcast too.

We've announced today that George Alagiah will, from November, be the sole presenter of the Six O'Clock News bulletin. We've decided to make the change following Natasha Kaplinsky's departure from the BBC last week.

George is, obviously, a hugely well-known and well-respected journalist, who brings vast amounts of experience and tremendous versatility to the programme - he's as comfortable with reporting from scenes of flood devastation as he is reporting from Downing Street. The six o'clock bulletin has a special remit to report fully stories from around the UK, and we'll be working closely with George to fulfil this objective.

Additionally, it's fair to say that the move allows us to make better use of our resources - but not at the cost of detracting from the core values of the bulletin.

Listeners to BBC radio might have noticed a subtle change in the way we are announcing our news bulletins. It might be useful for me to explain what we have done and why we've done it.

For instance, until last week, a bulletin on Radio Four would be introduced with the words: “BBC Radio Four, the news at two o'clock." It would conclude with the words "BBC Radio Four news". Now, however, we have changed the script slightly and you will hear "BBC News on Radio Four, it's two o'clock" at the start of the bulletin and "BBC News for Radio Four" at the end. Other networks have similar changes which we have worked out after talking to the different channels.

These are small changes, but we know that the familiar rhythms of our broadcasts are valued by listeners. We don't change them lightly. The reason we've chosen to do it here is that the audience is now consuming BBC News across a wider variety of channels and platforms than ever before. The advice we were given was that we needed to simplify the identity of BBC News, given that it's such a trusted and central part of what the BBC offers, and to make it as recognisable as possible across all the services we offer.

When a bulletin has been produced by BBC News, it's sensible and reasonable to tell people it's been produced by BBC News. We did audience research into the new script, and people told us they were quite happy with this sort of wording. They felt it added authority and credibility to our output.

Graeme McLagan's court victory is another step along the long and rocky path of bringing the laws of libel in line with the laws of common sense.

McLagan, a former BBC journalist, had written a book about police corruption. A former policeman who McLagan names in the book had successfully sued the author and his publisher for libel. Yesterday, the Court of Appeal overturned that decision and ruled instead in McLagan and his publisher's favour.

The case hinged on something called the ‘Reynolds Defence’ - a phrase on the lips of most journalists and some lawyers but not necessarily a subject of nightly conversation in the Dog and Duck.

Briefly, the Reynolds Defence is named after a defence raised in the late 1990s by Times Newspapers after the Sunday Times published an article about the former Irish prime minister, Albert Reynolds. Mr Reynolds sued, arguing the allegations in the article were not true and were defamatory. The newspaper argued that the allegations it published were serious and that it had a duty to publish them. They were, it argued, made in the public interest and after they'd exercised all reasonable care in checking. Even if the allegations were not true, they argued they should have been able to report them and be legally protected by 'qualified privilege'.

In 2001, the Law Lords decided that the Reynolds Defence was a valid one, subject to certain conditions. Crucially, for the defence to be successful the journalism had to be careful, its tone sober, its subject important and of urgent public interest. In other words, it had to be good journalism. It was not a charter for publishing tittle-tattle.

It was a defence that the Wall Street Journal raised when it was sued by a Saudi Arabian businessman Abdullah Latif Jameel and his companies. Initially the defence failed - but was finally successful on appeal to the House of Lords. In their judgement, the Law Lords seemed to move the law even further in defence of careful, sober, investigative journalism, also recognising the principle that journalists work in a pressured atmosphere in which the life of a news story is limited.

It is a stance that recognises the essential disadvantage an investigative journalist faces in breaking a story that someone, somewhere would rather was not broken. The libel laws in the UK notoriously favour those with the money or motive to make life tough for a journalist bent on disclosure and a public bent on transparency. The late Robert Maxwell was ruthless in his use, and threats, of libel actions to deter journalists from printing what we now know was the truth about him and his business methods.

An important feature of the McLagan ruling, though, is that the Reynolds Defence has now been extended to longer-form and longer-term journalism, and is not now limited - as some assumed after the Wall Street Journal case - to the rough and tumble of daily news.

The key point, though, remains; that this defence is only available to careful, considered journalism. As one of the Appeal Court judges put it, criticising the judge in the original case: “I do not see in this judgment any sufficient allowance made for McLagan's honesty, his expertise in the subject, his careful research, and his painstaking evaluation of a mass of material.”

"Honesty", "expertise", "careful", "painstaking" all describe Graeme McLagan's methods precisely - I know, I worked closely with him in the 1980s on documentaries about the IRA, spying and the Official Secrets Act; a fact checked and corroborated only twice or three times was still, in his view, unverified. Yesterday's ruling now - properly - offers a greater degree of protection to journalists who fit that description.

So Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have won the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to build up and disseminate knowledge about man-made climate change.

This has refocused attention on Mr Gore's Oscar winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, which has been called by its critics a 'shockumentary'. It was in the news earlier this week when a High Court judge ruled that the film should only be shown in schools with accompanying guidance notes to balance what the judge called Mr Gore's "one-sided views". My colleague Craig Oliver has blogged on this.

We led the programme with the story on Wednesday because it was clearly an interesting development in the arguments over climate change and man's role in causing it. But some of our listeners thought some BBC headlines were misleading. We opened the programme by saying:

"The film made by the former American vice president Al Gore about climate change - which the government wants to be shown in thousands of British schools - has been strongly criticised by a High Court judge for making exaggerated and alarmist claims."

When we introduced the item after our news bulletin we said:

"Al Gore got it wrong on global warming. So said a High Court judge today, who ruled that his Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, contains at least nine errors."

It's this that some listeners took issue with - they pointed out that boiling what the judge said to “Al Gore got it wrong” is misleading because the judge didn't say the nine claims he criticised were necessarily wrong - they were controversial and not part of the scientific consensus (my colleague Roger Harrabin goes into more depth on this).

Some of the papers the next day simplified it even further, “Al Gore's climate film's nine untruths” or “Gore's green film is alarmist, says Hight Court judge” being two examples.

Our critics argued that headlines are what stick in most people's minds and so we need to be more careful how we phrase them so that we don't mislead while trying to pique our audiences interest in a story to keep them reading/listening/watching.

Earlier on Wednesday, I had been taking part in a conference at the Royal United Services Institute on relations between the media and the Ministry of Defence where one of my co-panellists argued that headlines can be so inaccurate as to almost contradict what is in the story. A much discussed example there a headline in mid-August that British soldiers in Afghanistan had a one in 36 chance of being killed in combat which the most of the participants at RUSI insisted was not what the reports actually said.

These critics are right in at least one respect - we do need to be careful with our headlines and we don't always get it right - though on Wednesday night I think our headline was an accurate rendering of the story and the introduction to the item in the programme was in that context and was not misleading - you can check it out for yourself and make your own mind by clicking here to listen to the programme.

We have had a number of complaints about the views Kelvin Mackenzie expressed on Question Time last night concerning Scotland. He is a high profile former editor of a tabloid newspaper - and current Sun columnist - with strong opinions to match.

Question Time considers Kelvin Mackenzie to be a suitable panellist since the programme is committed to including a wide range of views and perspectives.

His views are controversial - but robust argument is what the debate on Question Time is about. There is no question of the BBC or Question Time endorsing the views of any panellist who appears on the programme. Scotland was not the subject of the question asked and his view was robustly rejected both by other panellists and members of the audience. David Dimbleby pointed out that his Sun column is not even carried in the Scottish edition of the paper.

The programme is pre-recorded earlier in the evening, but is only edited to deal with legal or technical issues. His views did not fall into that category and it would not therefore have been appropriate to edit them out.

Climate change has joined a select band of issues where passions are at boiling point.

A few months ago a Channel Four documentary designed to debunk the "global warming industry" sparked controversy for having significant factual errors.

On Wednesday night's Ten O'Clock News we led the programme with a story about a High Court judge pointing out nine "errors" in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth - a documentary which unashamedly argues that the world faces catastrophe if we do not address the issue. The fact that Al Gore was the hot tip to win the Nobel Peace Prize added to the topicality of the story.

Today he won the prize, and - unsurprisingly - it's a controversial choice, not least because the question being asked is: what has climate change got to do with promoting world peace?

The key point is that we live in a world where some documentaries are created to argue a very specific case - the producers marshal the facts to ensure their view is seen in the best light, emphasising certain points, while ignoring or underplaying “inconvenient truths”. This is a dangerous game - if you appear to be on shaky ground, your opponents will ask 'If you got that wrong, surely your entire case is wrong?' The truth is usually far more difficult, and more interesting.

Some may find it hard to believe - and I am already anticipating the response to this blog - BBC News will always try to give a full, impartial picture on climate change. That's why we have done pieces pointing out why the majority of scientists believe it is happening, why some believe it is happening but it may not be as catastrophic as Al Gore makes out, and others pointing to the flaws in Gore's case. It is a story - and a debate - that will run and run. And rightly so.

For several hours on Thursday afternoon, the front page of the BBC News website was slow to respond, sometimes displaying error messages. Other sections of the site were also affected at various times during the afternoon.

It's a rare event and it caused some comment on technical websites, and also theories about what might have happened - was the BBC changing its webserving providers? Was it a redesign problem? Was it "computer gods punishing us for iPlayer"?

Well although the investigations aren't fully complete, our technical team has confirmed the problems were triggered by a routine software deployment that had unforeseen consequences. To those who had trouble getting onto the site yesterday - apologies - nothing is more important to us than the reliability and resilience of our services and we are taking another hard look at our deployment, contingency and back up procedures.

It's said that Roy Plomley, the founder of Desert Island Discs, could always tell when a guest's choices were genuine and when they'd been prepared by a PR to play well with the public.

I've heard a few deeply suspect selections from very senior politicians down the years, but I'm pretty certain Alan Johnson, Health Secretary and rock star wannabe, was speaking from the heart on the latest show. And good choices too (see below for details). Not just any old Beatles song, but And Your Bird Can Sing, surely their finest moment. Elvis Costello and David Bowie too. But was that dash of Mahler really in his top eight, or with an eye to the classical vote?

Most intriguing though, was discussion of his own recording career - an unreleased disc called Hard Life by a group called The Area. He claims no longer to have a copy, but surely someone out there has it? If so we'd love to hear it and would be pleased to post it on our new Big Fat Newsnight Politics Page .

Read the rest of this entry

The Guardian: Reports that Sir Michael Lyons has told leading BBC broadcasters to keep out of the public debate over proposed budget cuts. (link)

Press Gazette: Article on Gordon Brown's exclusive interview with Andrew Marr over his election decision. (link)

The Times: Analysis of the current difficulties facing Mark Thompson. (link)

Metro: "Burma's military rulers have accused the BBC of provoking the anti-government demonstrations in the country." (link)

There's been some talk - and criticism - this week of our role in the PM's announcement that there would be no election this year. And I'll admit that the way the news emerged was a bit odd. And no, if I had been orchestrating events it wouldn’t have been done it that way.

But that’s simply a matter of sequence and timing. If the interview had been live (as requested by us) we wouldn’t have had the slightly bizarre spectacle of the media pack - including the Beeb’s own political editor – waiting outside Downing Street while the PM unburdened himself inside, and then let Marr relay what had been recorded a few minutes earlier.

First charge: The BBC allowed itself to be used in a dodgy-Brown-spin operation. It was improper for a single journalist to agree to an interview, knowing that some really important news was likely to come out of it. Nonsense! Print and broadcast journalists do interviews week in week out hoping to get a scoop. It rarely happens. On Saturday it did.

Was the Marr team explicitly told in advance that the PM was ducking out of an election, but this news should be held till Sunday morning? Absolutely not. Was there a clandestine agreement that key information that came out of the interview should be held till later? No – a couple of key clips were aired on BBC news within minutes of the interview being concluded, and Marr gave a summary of Brown's most important answers live on News 24.

Second charge: That Marr was selected because he was 'a patsy' and duly gave the PM a pathetically-soft ride. Well I’m not going to cough to that one am I? But then look at the facts. And more importantly the transcript (or watch the interview).

Presumably the PM’s people wanted a vehicle where there would be time for him try and explain himself - and where this would be done to a mass audience. The Andrew Marr Show specialises in long interviews with top politicians. It’s what we do, week in week out. And around 1.5m people are viewing at any point in the hour. On an average Sunday, that’s more than the other four weekend current affairs TV shows put together.

Brown was charged by Marr with bottling out, dithering, changing his mind because of the polls, responding to a very strong Tory party conference, having dreadfully mishandled the whole episode and having gone back to the old ways of spin when he had promised a fresh new open and honest way of doing politics. Brown didn’t run up the white flag, but when the whole lobby pack were let loose on him on Monday morning the very same points were put to him and he didn’t run up the white flag up then either.

Third charge: That Marr gives Brown a soft ride and then accords Cameron a hard time. Again, look at the transcripts. Not so. In fact you could argue that by giving one politician ten minutes to respond to a lengthy recorded interview, the advantage is naturally with the politician who has the last word. The Mail On Sunday reported that the PM... "was hesitant and struggled to give coherent replies to Andrew Marr who went out of his way to be blunt". The Daily Mail’s Quentin Letts: "Andrew Marr... got stuck in. He biffed the PM about the spin and cynicism of his election teasing and his trip to Iraq. Marr even used that old word 'frit' - Mrs Thatcher’s Lincolnshire expression for cowardice."

Fourth charge: That the Brown team was trying to spin their way to the last. Briefing selected print journalists. Giving the story to one broadcaster they felt comfortable with. Declining to give individual interviews with the political editors of each main TV channel before doing one long interview for a current affairs show. And trying - perhaps ineptly - to manipulate the timing to achieve the best outcome in what was always going to be a sticky situation. In effect behaving as spin doctors have done from Bernard Ingham onwards. Quite possibly – but then that’s not a charge levelled at the Beeb, or the producer of The Andrew Marr Show. And some might respond: it was ever thus.

The Times: "Mark Thompson, the BBC's director general, was today forced to backtrack on comments in which he said that employees at the broadcaster would be "pleasantly surprised" by the level of job losses to be announced next week." (link)

Daily Telegraph: Reports that leading BBC radio presenters have signed an open letter to the BBC Trust complaining about proposed job cuts. (link)

The Guardian: Reports that funding has been approved for the BBC's expanded 24-hour Arabic TV news service, as well as a news channel in Farsi. (link)

All papers: Report the news of anticipated job cuts at the BBC. (link, link, link and link)

Daily Telegraph: Leader article on the threat of strike action at the BBC. (link)

“We’re off!” That was the message last week. This week it’s changed to “It’s off!” How a few words from the prime minister can transform the political climate.

For many weeks now people have kept asking me, “So will there be an autumn election?”. I’m supposed to know these things, so it’s been tempting to come up with some certainty – “definitely, November the first” - or - “no way, the polls just don’t stack up”. But the sad truth is, I haven’t had the first idea. Nor to be fair, has anyone else, including the prime minister, who told us in his monthly news conference this week that he’d been thinking about it, but hadn’t made up his mind till the party conference season was over.

I remember some weeks ago when one of our political correspondents found out that Ed Miliband, the Cabinet Office minister, was writing Labour’s manifesto. That was interpreted by some as meaning the election was on. But as our very shrewd political editor pointed out, it could just as easily be the Labour equivalent of “BBC News bosses hold crisis talks on election,” which in reality was me phoning up a colleague at TV Centre to say it might be an idea to have a meeting sometime soon about the possibility of an early campaign.

In the hothouse of the political conferences in Brighton, Bournemouth and Blackpool, election fever took hold – not just in the media, but amongst the politicians too, with some serious briefing going on from people very close to the PM – and an election felt like a real possibility.

So the last couple of weeks saw us go into election planning overdrive. Teams were hastily put together to follow the party leaders round the country; discussions were held with the other broadcasters about “pooling” morning press conferences; half-term leave was cancelled; plans were set in place to bring correspondents back from round the world. For a day or two, the hot favourite was Sunday 4th November... until a wise head in the Political Research Unit pointed out that the government would have to pass a new law to make that possible. We even went through a period of consulting long range weather forecasts and checking daylight hours for the possible election dates. Down the road from Labour’s conference centre in Bournemouth the tarot card reader did a roaring trade...

Then on Saturday Gordon Brown inviited Andrew Marr into Downing Street to announce his decision (watch the interview here). If someone one day wanted to make a drama about this period, in the style of Dennis Potter, Andrew Marr would sit down opposite the prime minister, who would then pull his most serious sober face, and quietly start singing:

“You say eether and I say eyether,

You say neether and I say nyther;

Eether, eyether, neether, nyther

Let’s call the whole thing off!”

The two would then tap-dance all the way down Downing Street, as Nick Robinson (first, I’m pleased to say) and Adam Boulton broke the news to the nation.

So no election for now, and for the foreseeable future. But at least we have some plans in place for when it does happen. And who says politics isn’t fun.

Financial Times: Reports that at least 12% of BBC jobs are to be cut. (link)

The Times: David Aaronovitch writes that "the BBC story has shifted from being one about scandal to being one about panic". (link)

If you'd asked me a week ago how I'd feel if the General Election was off I'd have said "relieved".

But now that it really is off the feeling is more like "bereft". Caught on the hop by the prospect of a snap election we threw the kitchen sink at it last week - brainstorming programme ideas, designing election graphics, building a website.

By Thursday we had an election plan, and we liked what we saw. Now it's all off and is unlikely to happen until 2009, our burst of feverish creativity will probably never see the light of day.

It's tempting - though hardly practical - to have an election campaign without the politicians, but having discarded that notion this week we bring you "Why Democracy?". In conjunction with the documentary strand Storyville, we have a series of films showing democracy in action around the world. A little help for election addicts with withdrawal symptoms.

At the end of our first week on the air with a new program - BBC World News America - a few brief observations:

• I'm STILL having trouble with the differences in production lingo and acronyms between the BBC and my previous experience in American TV. My current favourite is a term I find in today's line-up: "FooC." Say it out loud, and it sounds sort of nasty. It's not... it's actually short for 'From Our Own Correspondent'. I've learned that's a venerable BBC radio program, and we're trying a television version of it.

• I've also learned that the confusion over slang runs in both directions. In a meeting earlier this week, I referred to a story as "a pig in a poke." Some of my British colleagues looked at me with the same blank stare they've been seeing from ME. You'll have to go to Google to find the actual derivation, but it basically means "it is what it is," or "there's nothing to be done about it." I guess the same can be said for our occasional linguistic dis-connects.

• A vignette from today: Our program's chief engineer and videotape engineer Charlie Wilson popped his head in and said "the roundtable discussion... it runs eight-and-a-half minutes." "Fine," was my response. Then he and I looked at each other and burst into laughter. That's because until recently, both Charlie and I worked for the same 30 minute-long American news broadcast, and we couldn't have gotten anything that ran even half that length into the broadcast at the point of a gun! Don't get me wrong... I love it, but it does take some getting used to producing a program with a different pace and at a different length.

• An American television critic commenting on our new program asked the following very good question in his column this week: "If 'BBC World News America' is intended to be world news for American audiences, why, we wonder, are metric measurements used? And if this is supposed to be news for American consumption, why does the very-British staff refer to "America" as if it were a distant Colonial outpost?" The answer is that though our program(me) IS aimed at an American audience, it also airs around the planet on BBC World, and we need and value BOTH sets of viewers.

• It's good to have a week under our belt, and I'm really proud of everyone who has worked so hard to make the new program happen, from the big bosses in London down to the pizza deliveryman (the receipts will show up on my next expense report). But as my old boss at CBS used to say, "You're only as good as your next program.

The Guardian: Alan Yentob, the BBC's creative director, speaks about 'Noddygate'. (link)

The Guardian: A report on the ability of news organisations to deal with the demands of a snap election, had one been called. (link)

The Guardian: An article on the architect behind the BBC's new studios in Glasgow. (link)

Sunday Telegraph: Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall comments on management at the corporation. (link)

Excellent news about the Nick Clarke award for interviewing - absolutely appropriate. Nick had a great many talents, but if you had to pick one I'm sure most would go for his skill as an interviewer.

Described variously as cool, courteous, measured and/or forensic, his approach grew from the belief that his role was to find something out. He then, of course, had the charm and intelligence to pursue this relentlessly.

As a producer on The World At One or The World This Weekend you knew that when you told him you'd fixed x or y to be interviewed, he'd immediately ask why, what could they add to our understanding of a particular story?

Yesterday some of us were thinking back over the years of interviews. Lots of personal favourites, but everyone at some stage mentioned those during the period of Hutton and his report. As an example of keeping a firm grip on intellectual inquiry in the midst of heightened emotions and internal turmoil it stands as one of Nick's finest achievements.

Financial Times: Philip Stevens writes about the recent row over Newsround's guide to 9/11. (link)

The Sun: Leader article accuses the Today programme of having an EU bias. (link)

Press Gazette: Reports that the BBC is to launch a broadcasting award in honour of World at One presenter Nick Clarke who died last year. (link)

The Guardian: Reports that Alan Johnston will take part in an hour-long Panorama special, telling the story of his kidnapping and release. (link)

This morning I came in to find a few complaints claiming we'd not covered the Conservative Party Conference last night - and that we'd been fooled by Gordon Brown into leading on a statement about British troops in Iraq. Here's a smattering of the points made:

• "When the Labour Party had their conference the BBC chose to spend half of each news programme reporting on it, but tonight, the BBC didn't even mention the Conservative Party Conference, and instead focused on Gordon Brown's visit to Iraq."

• "I pay my Licence Fee to have genuine independent news but to not put the Tory Conference on at all is a disgrace."

• "I think you have been caught up in Gordon Brown's spin."

What's interesting is that we didn't receive any complaints from the Conservative Party - and trust me, they would have been straight on the phone if they believed that we had underplayed their conference yesterday. In fact concerns were raised by Gordon Brown's staff in regular calls - they were concerned that what they believed was a legitimate announcement was being made to look like spin.

Editorial choices can be hard, and it's difficult to please everyone, but I believe the Ten O'Clock News did cover the key story from the Conservative Party conference yesterday - with a chunky package and "live" from our political editor in Blackpool. The piece included stinging criticism from big-hitting Tories of the prime minister's decision to make an announcement on British troops in Iraq right in the middle of the conference, and despite the fact he'd said he'd tell Parliament first. Liam Fox, Sir John Major and David Cameron all focused on the issue. They wanted to get across their point that Gordon Brown is playing politics with our troops. Again, I underline, no one from the Conservative Party complained.

The previous night we presented the Ten O'Clock News from Blackpool. Huw Edwards presented pieces on the new inheritance tax policy, an analysis of whether it would work, and the views of delegates. Half the programme was spent on the Conservatives.

The reality is, we have done just as much on the Conservative conference as we did on Labour and more than we did on the Lib Dems.

For me, the key point about last night's story is: on occasion political parties will be more keen to be seen reacting to an event than to be articulating their own policies. When they want to do that at conference time, it is our duty to report that message to the public in a fair and balanced way. I believe we achieved that last night.

We do a lot about dead people on Radio Four. There are those who argue an elderly man dying should not be a news story, but we often find reflecting on someone's life irresistible. The traditional way of doing a radio 'obit' is to get other people to pay tribute, but on PM we prefer to hear from the person themselves by running an old interview or, as in Ronnie Hazlehurst's case, just experiencing a body of work. Enjoy.

The BBC is currently debating what it is for. Thank you for your contribution to the debate Ronnie.

Daily Mirror: Reports that newsreader Moira Stuart is leaving the BBC. (link)

It might seem tempting to go along with the name change from Burma to Myanmar instigated by the generals back in 1989, given the colonial associations with "Burma" - however the name change has been resisted by many who do not accept the legitimacy of the of current regime.

Rangoon also became Yangon; we have stayed with Rangoon. There were also other name changes within Burma which were themselves opposed by people within Burma.

There's an interesting piece online on this.

Of course there have been many other name changes especially within Asia where the BBC and the international community have gone with the decision made by a particular country… eg Mumbai but not (yet) Kolkata. But in India there has been debate and discussion which the BBC has reported and many times been part of. There has been no similar dialogue within Burma.

Not all name changes have stuck. Cambodia became Kampuchea under the Khmer Rouge in 1975. It is now of course back to being Cambodia. I am told the BBC stayed with Cambodia throughout.

The fact that many news organisations and official bodies - although by no means all - have started using "Myanmar" does mean that we need to also acknowledge that usage in many of our stories and links. So you might hear Burma and Myanmar in a story or cue but never Myanmar alone.

To change the name now would itself be seen as making a statement about the legitimacy of one side. We have not supported one side by leaving the name as "Burma", but have simply let the status quo remain.

I think the key point in the discussions here at the BBC World Service is that we change a name when it is a settled and lasting change - Burkina Faso for instance (formerly called the Republic of Upper Volta). And only in those circumstances. Even after all this time Burma is not a settled issue - is it?

I've just had a really enjoyable few days celebrating Radio 1's 40th birthday. As you can imagine I met up with some old, friendly faces from the past, exchanged stories and had a fond chuckle about the way things were. They even allowed me back on the radio to read a few news bulletins with Chris Moyles, Tony Blackburn and Simon Mayo (which you can listen to here).

But thinking about the past also got me worrying about the future. Will there be a Radio 1 - or a Newsbeat - in 40 years time?

Well, in the chaotic and rapidly changing media landscape, it's impossible to give a clear cut answer to this question… but what I would say is that even in the next few years, things will be very different. Here's a story that might illustrate why.

A teenager was helping his mum clean up their house. He came across what he described as a "big furniture box thing, really heavy with knobs" and asked his mum what it was. "It's a radio" she said. It wasn't even one of those classic 1940s models either - this was a mid -80s design. You see, to many of today's teenagers radio is just history - and they are the future audience after all. It's not that they don't listen, it's just that they prefer mobiles, blue Screen Sky or Freeview or the web to listen on. This audience is wired all the time: and we have to keep up.

Newsbeat - and Radio 1 - must have our content "atomised" - literally blasted out everywhere often in micro chunks - available on every platform available now and those still to be invented in future. Not just audio either - we have got to be visual - moving pictures, stills, webcams, the lot. It means being on platforms from iPods to mobiles, and from social networking and messaging sites to e-mail and text. It means listening to audio on MSN Messenger and the growing use of tags, allowing searching and cross referencing of data.

We also have to be more than ready for the challenges of what they're calling Web 2.0: no longer are broadcasters in the business of "telling" their audiences stuff - we are involved in an endless dialogue, constantly evolving and sharing film and audio content, facts, tips and so forth.

It's changing with dizzying speed - it’s going to be fun - challenging - great for the consumer and will pose bigger questions than ever about the future role of public service broadcasting - Radio 1 and Newsbeat. I don't know what the result will be but I can tell you we're right up for the big game!

Daily Telegraph: Gillian Reynolds on the 40th anniversary celebrations of Radios 1, 2 and 4. (link)

The Times: Reports that BBC Worldwide has acquired the travel guide publisher, Lonely Planet. (link)

In this week's Newswatch, the programme which discusses viewers' complaints about BBC TV News, home editor Mark Easton, defends a recent report that was criticised for making too much of a link between migrants and crime.

Also on the programme, Ben Rich, a deputy editor of daytime news, discussed why a story about a baby who was born with the help of a 999 operator was newsworthy.

You can watch Newswatch here.

Daily Telegraph: "A top BBC Radio 5 presenter was rejected as a replacement for John Humphrys on the Today programme allegedly because he was not posh enough." (link)

The Times: Reports that the Nicholas Sarkozy would like the French broadcasting system to be modelled on the BBC. (link)

The Guardian: Interview with Radio 4 controller, Mark Damazer, as the station celebrates its 40th birthday. (link)

The Independent: Rageh Omaar writes about his mentor, George Alagiah. (link)