Impartiality (archive)
- Peter Barron
- 22 Sep 06, 04:02 PM
Every time we run an item about climate change - which let's face it is quite often - we get a number of complaints about media hysteria.
"Oh no! Branson has just pledged 3 billion to fight Global Warming. ANOTHER excuse for Newsnight to champion the cause. It is becoming so tiresome."
"By your own standards tonight's item on global warming was a disgrace... One oversimplified interpretation of global warming is now force-fed to the public."
"Exxon funding groups critical of the increasing hysteria around climate change? Great news!"
Then you get articles like Tom Utley's in the Mail today, railing against the bien pensants of the 麻豆社, using to dismiss concerns about melting ice-caps his own ice-in-gin-and-tonic theory. It goes like this. If the doomsayers are right why doesn't your gin and tonic overflow when the ice melts?
I remember debating that one myself - a little incoherently - over iced drinks in my student days about 20 year ago.
So are we at the 麻豆社 peddling some sinister international climate change myth, or are sceptics like Mr Utley in hock to the CO2 nay-sayers of big business?
Neither I think. For years on Newsnight we've reported concerns about the effects of climate change with caution, due scepticism and balance. But at a certain point I think you've got to assemble all the available evidence and decide whether the threat is real or not. I think we're past that point and that the threat is real.
It doesn't necessarily mean, as Mr Utley mocks, that his beloved Norfolk will be under the sea any time soon, it's much more likely surely that Britain will feel the strain from the refugees from the effects of climate change who will make their way to our shores.
So what explains the staying power of the sceptics' argument?
One possibility is that they're right. But I think the real reason is that subconsciously many of us hope they're right. If Mr Blair really believed climate change was a bigger threat than terrorism, for example, wouldn't he devote more of his energies more urgently to it?
And Ethical Man aside, wouldn't you and I change our lifestyles more than the bits around the edges we've done so far?
I think most of us have an inner George Bush, or a part which is in denial and believes it can 't be as bad as all that, that surely something will turn up.
I hope we're right.
Peter Barron is editor of Newsnight
- Rod McKenzie
- 12 Sep 06, 10:36 AM
Recently, we interviewed the leaders of the three main parties on environmental policy - we called our two weeks of journalism 'The Global Challenge'. All of them talk a good game but our listeners are far from impressed with the actions that match the words.
They may have a point.
Ming Campbell, questioned by our terrier-like political reporter Rajini Vaidyanathan, told us that we should fit energy-saving light bulbs. How many in your household then, Rajini shot back. "Er, I don't have any," was the Lib Dem leader's reply. Rajini knows a jugular when she sees one, pointing out that how can he expect us to save the planet if he doesn't follow his own advice?
David Cameron's view on the subject was that if more of us cycled to work and employers fitted more showers, we'd all be better off. Not much point in doing that if you have an official car following behind with all your paperwork in though is it Mr C? That's not true, said the Tory leader, before admitting, well yes it had happened a couple of times but wouldn't again.
Tony Blair told us he'd turned down the temperature in Downing Street by one degree and enthused about the energy saving lightbulbs that Ming doesn't have… whilst clocking up more non-environmentally friendly air miles on his Caribbean holidays. But our listeners wondered why he is building more airport runways if he's so committed to the environment - and what about doing more to encourage green cars?
But to be fair - how green are the rest of us? Isn't it up to us to save the planet in little ways with a bit of recycling or switching off lights rather than expect the Government to do it for us?
Over on Radio 1's sister station 1Xtra, presenter G-Money had his home carbon energy audited - he scored a pathetic 3 out of 10. He's a big fan of power-hungry gadgets on standby - which, let's face it, doesn't help. And what's he doing about it? "Switching everything off," he told me - hmmmm, call me a sceptic but habits/lifetime/changing spring to mind.
Our reporters have travelled the world - Rajini again, to notorious high polluter India, and our US reporter Heather Alexander to check out green cars in New York - and get a 4x4 petrol head to drive one in Manhattan. We were inside the arctic circle to check on the big melt and Tulip Mazumdar went to Ireland to see how well a tax on plastic bags was working.
We did it all for journalistic reasons but we did a fair bit of polluting ourselves with all those fumes - travelling and flights. You can't win can you - so maybe politicians feel the same. But before you ask - yes, I am paying to make our reporters flights carbon neutral!
Rod McKenzie is editor of Newsbeat and 1Xtra TX
- Fran Unsworth
- 18 Aug 06, 09:01 AM
Some blogs, as well as emails we've received, have said that 麻豆社 correspondents are failing to report that when covering the war, they are operating under reporting restrictions imposed by Hezbollah. Others complain that we did not refer to Israeli censorship rules on air. I'd like to answer those points.
One of the forms that all journalists sign, to be accredited members of the press on arrival in Israel, is a promise that you will obey the rules of the military censor. In the context of the latest war in South Lebanon, those rules mean - we are not allowed to report any Hezbollah hits on military bases, not allowed to broadcast news of ministerial visits to the frontline until ministers are safely back out of Hezbollah’s range.
And if rockets land whilst we are live on air, we have to be vague as to where they fall (the theory being that Hezbollah may be watching 麻豆社 World or equivalent, and using our information to help them calibrate their rockets launchers). Also we are not allowed to report on military casualties until the Israeli censor says so.
In practice, Israel finds these rules very hard to enforce. It is a small, talkative country and the media usually finds out about casualties quickly. The rolling news networks based outside the country are not bound by the censorship rules, so if they find out from other sources they will broadcast.
James Reynolds, one of our correspondents reporting from Northern Israel, writes...
“Throughout the conflict we have pretty good access to soldiers, generals and ministers - all extremely keen to put Israel’s case to the international media. By and large we’ve been allowed to go wherever we want on the Israeli side of the border. We’ve often driven straight into Israeli bases right next to the frontline - in the middle of battle preparations - and nobody has kicked us out.”
So what about Hezbollah? Were they any better able to control what reporters can and cannot see? Jim Muir - our correspondent who has just spent the last month based in Southern Lebanon - says...
“There have basically been no restrictions on reporting as such - there’s been no pressure in any direction with regard to anything we actually say, indeed very little interaction of any sort. There was however an issue at the beginning of the conflict over the live broadcast of pictures of rockets going out from locations visible from our live camera position. We were visited by Hezbollah representatives and told that by showing the exact location of firing we were endangering civilian lives, and that our equipment would be confiscated.”
Editors in London discussed both how we should handle both this request, and the Israel rules, in terms of what we said on air.
We agreed that rather than begin each broadcast with a 'health warning' to audiences, we would only refer to it if it was relevant. If rockets started to go off while were live on air, we would not show the exact location but would tell the audience that we had been asked by Hezbollah not to; on the grounds they claimed it endangered civilian lives.
In the event the situation never arose. Apart from that one incident we have been free to report whatever we wanted.
On the Israeli side, we agreed to refer to the censorship rules when it prevented us from reporting anything. In practice, it never did, so we did not see the need to mention it.
Fran Unsworth is head of Newsgathering
- Peter Barron
- 11 Aug 06, 01:15 PM
On Newsnight we've long hankered after our own website forum. With an opinionated, argumentative, computer-literate audience it's a marriage made in heaven. So, as we launched Talk about Newsnight this week our correspondents queued up to expose themselves to your views.
First up: Justin Rowlatt - already a successful multi-media figure as and the recipient of around a thousand clunky old emails this year. A bright new age beckoned.
"This 'ethical man' crap has got to be one of the worst ideas Newsnight has ever had. An entire year? That's not serious journalism, that's moronic daytime-magazine-programme s***e. Good luck with the blog though." wrote Kate, rather charmingly by the end.
"Welcome to blogging Justin", added our business correspondent Paul Mason, in what I think was solidarity.
We launched the forum properly on Thursday and the timing - coinciding with the huge news of the foiled alleged terror plot - could hardly have been better. As our deputy editor, Daniel "King of the Blogs" Pearl, spends his evenings discovering, the great attribute of the blogger is scepticism. Sceptics duly flocked to his posting (also here), Peter Simmons summing up the mood.
"It now transpires that bottles of pop are suspect, MI6 must have just seen the Tango ads and thought 'whoo, that looks dangerous'. This is sounding more and more like a farce, dressed up by the government to frighten old ladies into not flying. Meanwhile, in Lebanon...".
Don't the trusting or the gullible ever go blogging?
As I write I've just noticed this, from the improbably named Gully Burns of California. Is Gully gullible, or just sensible?
"I live in Los Angeles. People here respond to the news with immediate relief and support for the security services. There is almost no thought of the secondary implications, or having any sort of suspicion that the timing of the event is in any way related to Lebanon, Iraq or any other theatre of conflict. I personally feel that congratulations are in order to the police for this coup. All the complainants on this post would certainly be shocked and horrified if the events described today had come true, and they would then probably be complaining that the police didn't do their jobs."
In truth, one of Newsnight's aims in life is to be heartily sceptical, so we can hardly be surprised at our viewers' demeanour. But personally my favourite piece of the week displayed no edge, no cynicism, no controversy. It was the rediscovered gem of Harold Baim's travel film showing the beautiful place that Lebanon was in the more innocent age of the 1960s (watch it here) - now a tragic and poignant document.
Perhaps you hated it?
Peter Barron is editor of Newsnight
- Vicky Taylor
- 10 Aug 06, 11:20 AM
A correspondent to the debate on the doctored photographs asks an interesting question about how the 麻豆社 is countering images from the public showing 'posed or inaccurate images'.
We now receive around 300 images a week to our . Most of these are interesting snaps taken of people’s families, holidays or lives in general. A fair proportion on a busy week are from news events, ie from Lebanon, or Britain during the heatwave.
Of course, we are aware that some people will use this system to try and hoax us, to send something which is not quite as it seems. It’s something we are on the look out for as we go through the images, and to date we’ve not published anything which has been problematic. But that doesn’t make us complacent. You do get a second sense with these images, and the team which are looking at them are doing so day in day out.
You can obviously follow all the usual journalistic paths; you can email or ring the photographer back and check are they were they say they are, does their number appear to be the code of the area they say, it is their photograph. If you get multiple photographs of the same image you would think that maybe they have been picked up from an agency or sharing site and don’t belong to the person sending them.
If they appear 'photoshopped', or almost too good, you would double check.
Some people take grabs off a television - these you can spot. You can do a quick technical check to see when the image was taken and with what device. You can compare with other photos from the same area, from TV images you may have of the place, you can check other photo agency wires to see if the image crops up elsewhere.
Most genuine emailers will add text, a plausible story, which can be checked out. You take care, and always use your professional judgement. No matter how pressing the need is to get that image up on the web or on the tv screen, the verification process must be gone through.
However I would say that the vast majority of people don’t want to hoax you, they want to get their image published and so share their story with the world, and that for our journalism and reflecting what is really going on in the world, can only be a good thing.
While I’m here... I wanted to add a note about the sheer volume of comments we’ve received on the crisis in Lebanon.
Since it began the Have Your Say debates have received well over 100,000 comments - and had 3.5 million page impressions. It has been consistently the only story people want to talk about or read people’s views on. On one day - 26 July - we received over 6,000 emails.
But that of course means that many people who do send their views may not get them published. There is no agenda here. On massive stories like this we do try to pick a range of views expressed differently - it would be no good if every one said more or less the same thing in the same way. We do try and pick comments from people actually living through or with direct experience of the event - on either side.
We know how frustrating it can be not to get a view which is held very deeply on the pages, but I can assure all those in this position, we are working flat out to get through as many as we can. Thank you all for your contributions.
Vicky Taylor is editor of Interactivity.
- Steve Herrmann
- 8 Aug 06, 09:59 AM
As with any conflict, photographers are at the heart of the propaganda war - with both sides attempting to use the power of the camera to their own ends.
that it has withdrawn all the pictures taken by Adnan Hajj (one of its stringers in Lebanon), following his use of Photoshop to manipulate two images, has meant all of us need to understand the processes by which these pictures are obtained and used.
I asked the 麻豆社 News website's picture editor, Phil Coomes, to explain some of the background to the images we can easily take for granted.
"At the 麻豆社 News website we rely on a number of international news agencies to provide us with the majority of our still images. Trusted and well established names such as the Associated Press and Agence France Press sit beside new players in the game such as Getty News Images.
"All of these companies have their own staff photographers who work alongside local freelancers around the world - forwarding their pictures to an editor who will then send it on to their subscribers.
"At the 麻豆社 we receive over 5,000 pictures per day on the picture wire service; ten years ago it would have been less than 500. News websites need vast quantities of pictures and often in real-time - the days of a photographer providing the one defining image for a newspaper front page are long gone.
"All the pictures we use are checked for any obvious editing - the easiest to spot being cloning of parts of the image (which appeared to be what happened in this example).
"Today a photographer working in the field is under more pressure than ever, especially in a combat zone. He or she no longer has to just take the pictures, not to mention ensure they are in the right place to begin with, but they also have to edit, caption and transmit them.
"For this and other reasons photographers often work together, so at any major event you will usually have a number of sources to compare against each other - giving a good indication as to the basic truth of the picture.
"The are interesting, in that there are many ways to interpret the images. The basic truth is undeniable, but with so many photographers all shooting the same event, and filing many alternative pictures to their agencies, the sequence of events is hard to pin down.
"To some extent the presence of a camera will alter the event, but it’s up to those on the ground to work around this and present us with an objective a view as possible.
"Digital photography has altered the landscape of photojournalism like nothing before it, placing the photographers in total control of their output. All the news agencies have photo ethics policies, many of which are rooted in the days of film. The standard line is that photographers are allowed to use photo manipulation to reproduce that which they could do in the darkroom with conventional film.
"This usually means, colour balance, '', cropping, touching up any marks from dust on the sensor and perhaps a little sharpening. If we are honest though, an accomplished darkroom technician could do almost anything and there are many historical examples of people being airbrushed from pictures.
"All this sounds fine until you look at the reality - .
"By definition a photograph is a crop of reality, it’s what the photojournalist feels is important. But it doesn't equate to the whole truth, and perhaps we just need to accept that."
UPDATE (from Steve Herrmann): I should have said at the start - we didn't use the Reuters picture on the 麻豆社 News website.
But we have had some emails about another picture we used yesterday of a Lebanese woman in front of damaged buildings. We got the picture from AP and it was dated last Saturday but a reader pointed out it bore a resemblance to another picture - which we hadn't run - attributed to Reuters and dating from July.
It wasn't the same image, but conceivably could have been the same place and time. We weren't in a position to get to the bottom of this immediately ourselves so we decided to update the picture with a different, more recent image. But not before it was picked up by at least .
Steve Herrmann is editor of the
- Daniel Pearl
- 7 Aug 06, 02:05 PM
Have you been emailed about ? Or maybe ? If you're like me you've probably been sent both.
There is an enormous online campaign by both sides to persuade the world that the media is biased one way or another in its reporting of the Lebanon/Israel conflict.
Yesterday the story took an unexpected turn. Reuters announced that it has dropped a freelance photographer after, Reuters claim, he doctored an image of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on Beirut to show more smoke (details ).
"The photographer has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under," , the head of public relations for Reuters.
But what are the chances of the online community believing that? On Newsnight tonight we'll be discussing the images the public sees, how they are chosen and whether they are manipulated.
Leave a comment and let me know what you want us to include in the programme.
UPDATE, TUESDAY 1015: Click here to watch the item that went out last night (including an interview with Paul Holmes from Reuters).
Daniel Pearl is deputy editor of Newsnight
- Liliane Landor
- 2 Aug 06, 12:13 PM
This war has all been about semantics and the failure to read the small print.
As I write, our reporter in Brussels is filing on the EU foreign ministers meeting that's just ended - the gist of her report is that the ministers agreed not to call for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon. Instead, they're calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
The difference between ceasefire and cessation of hostilities? A cynic would say none. Just a way around various political sensitivities.
But it’s not just the Europeans that have a taste for linguistic fineries. The Israelis and Lebanese can also play at that game. Here's two quick examples.
Example 1 - early Monday morning Israel announces it's agreed to a suspension of air activity for 48 hours to investigate the Qana incident - we duly register. It’s the lead of our news bulletins and breakfast programmes.
A few hours later, Dan Damon on World Update interviews a Lebanese minister who insists aerial bombardment was still going on, and claims the Israeli airforce had just attacked a Lebanese military post near Tyre. Clearly the story's moving fast but we need to confirm and get this right. If the minister's claims are correct, we can’t possibly keep leading on "a cessation of aerial hostilities".
The programme's editor decides to turn to Jim Muir in the South of Lebanon who confirms artillery was hitting, but most likely it's naval he says. Jim adds he could hear planes flying but did not think they were dropping bombs. The editor decides to get it from the horse's mouth - the always-accommodating IDF spokesperson. No joy there. It's finally Richard Miron, in Metulla on the Israeli/Lebanese border who sheds some light over the elusive aerial "pause"...
He explains that Israeli jets had been operating in the area and quoted the Israeli army saying, "it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah targets where it believe its forces and civilians are under imminent threat". Hot of the press, he then confirmed the Air Force was indeed assisting ground operation. Ceasefire meant in this instance that the Israeli airforce was not carrying on with its timetabled operation - simply responding.
Riddle solved. We changed our headline.
Example 2 - from the other side of the border. It is well known there is no love lost between Hezbollah and the Lebanese PM Fuad Siniora. Mr Siniora is anti-Syrian, a good friend of Condoleeza Rice, and certainly not a fan of Syed Hassan Nasrallah.
Yet in an emotional speech after the Israeli strike on Qana, the prime minister praised Hezbollah, calling them resistance fighters, protectors of Lebanon and the Lebanese - you could say he "re-named" Hezbollah.
Mere semantics or a more profound shift in internal Lebanese alignments? Time will tell.
Liliane Landor is editor of World Service news and current affairs
- Paul Brannan
- 28 Jul 06, 02:58 PM
The language of conflict has always given birth to euphemisms – collateral damage, kinetic targeting and ethnic cleansing are among the more recent entries to the argot of the times.
George Orwell covered this ground in Politics and the English Language back in 1945. He wrote: "“Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.
“Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers."
Orwell saw this retreat into euphemism as a consequence of political expediency by those seeking to defend the indefensible. Such phraseology was needed by those who wanted to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.
A more recent commentator, Keith Woods of the Poynter Institute, cautioned against adopting the language of the military in reporting on war. “Language has always had a power that tilts towards those who define the terms,” he observed.
And my colleague Jon Williams has also written of the sensitivities of language, specifically the words used to describe the recent taking of the two Israeli soldiers.
The weight of history and its years of tit-for-tat reprisals in the region would lead many people to take issue with Orwell’s conclusion about language. Some would insist that Israel’s actions in southern Lebanon were entirely defensible. But when, in a recent report, we mentioned the proposal for a “buffer zone” between Israel and Lebanon as part of a wider ceasefire plan it prompted one viewer to write and complain.
"'Buffer zone' is a propaganda term used by the Israeli government. It should not be simply repeated by a news organisation.”
Such a description would be mendacious to many Lebanese. For them it’s a straightforward invasion and occupation of their territory.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the conflict, using the Israeli terminology - “buffer zone” - without ascribing it to them would make it appear that we accept the view of it as a purely defensive measure designed to protect Israel from aggression. Not using the term could also make us appear partial, or that we believed the argument that it is nothing to do with self-defence.
So, for future instances, I’ve asked the web team simply to make clear that the expression is one Israel has given to it.
Paul Brannan is deputy editor of the
- Jon Williams
- 26 Jul 06, 02:51 PM
I began life working for the supermarket chain Sainsbury's. Chapter 1, paragraph 1 of "How to do retail" is the idea that the customer is always right!
As maxims go, it's not a bad one - never forget the consumer has a choice. It's something that's stuck with me ever since - it's as applicable to broadcasting as it is to selling groceries. But sometimes, that belief is tested.
One of the things that's distinguished the 麻豆社's coverage of the fighting in Lebanon has been our ability to travel the region - hearing different perspectives from our correspondents across the Middle East, whether it's from Gaza, Damascus or Tehran. Yesterday Margaret Beckett called on Syria and Iran to stop encouraging "extremism" in Lebanon and end support for Hezbollah. The 麻豆社 is the only English-language broadcaster to have a bureau in Iran - recently we built a TV studio in Tehran to allow News 24 and 麻豆社 World to report live from the city.
So it seemed rather uncontroversial for our correspondent in the city, Frances Harrison, to appear on 麻豆社 News 24 to report how the crisis in Lebanon was being reported in Iran, wearing a rather fetching red headscarf (you can watch the piece by clicking here). Uncontroversial until a viewer rang the 麻豆社 duty log rang to complain that wearing the scarf called into question "the objectivity of this reporter".
Really?
If you've seen those adverts for HSBC, you'll know that different countries have different customs. A bit like HSBC, the 麻豆社 operates in more than 20 different countries - and in each our staff respect those traditions. In Iran, women are required to cover their heads. It's not unusual. In Saudi Arabia women are expected to wear a larger abaya, and can be arrested by the religious police if they don't.
But it's not just about the letter of the law - it is about us respecting local sensitivities. We can only operate in other countries with the consent of the people who live there - we don't inhabit an ivory tower. It's important for the integrity of our journalism that we get out and talk to the people of Tehran - as we do in Moscow, Beijing or Washington. That means we need to respect their customs and traditions.
I'm not sure why that makes Frances or any of her colleagues elsewhere in the world any less objective - on the contrary, I suspect it gives them rather greater insight into the people and countries they report on.
And I thought she rather suited that red headscarf.
Jon Williams is world news editor
- Barney Jones
- 26 Jul 06, 12:39 PM
So, I was pilloried by The Thunderer on Monday - that's - for having such enthusiasm for Hezbollah that I must in fact be the leader of this organisation.
Quite a damning attack on a long-standing and relatively anonymous staffer steeped in the ethos of objectivity and fair play. An ethos perhaps not applicable to columnists who earn a living from being provocative; making waves.
But what to do? The news of this full-frontal attack reached me rather late in the day. After working in Television Centre most of the weekend, I headed off for the wilderness of the Brecon Beacons on Sunday evening, with my teenage son. Come Monday lunchtime, arriving at a hilltop that picked up a faint mobile phone signal, I learned of the damaging denunciation.
and I agreed that since the piece was wrong in detail, as well as broad implication, a response was essential. He prepared a brief eloquent letter and I offered a more detailed lumbering explanation. An amalgam was eventually submitted to the Times letters page and .
The programme on Sunday 23rd (which you can currently watch here) was not, as stated by Pollard, "mostly... given over to events in the Middle East". It was centred on a long interview with the deputy prime minister, the first live TV interview since his personal and political life imploded three months ago.
Attacks for being too tough or too soft on Prezza I anticipated. Masterminding Hezbollah was a surprise.
The sole interview with any player with a direct tie-in to the Middle East was with a minister in the Lebanese government. A brief interview with a woman who is not aligned with Hezbollah, whose husband was assassinated in a bombing she believes was associated with Syrian factions, and who was questioned by Marr about the culpability of Hezbollah for the mayhem now engulfing her country.
With Israeli troops massing on the border, the interview seemed entirely appropriate and was followed by a live link with the 麻豆社's man in Jerusalem for an overview of the diplomatic manoeuvres and the Israeli government’s stated response to the British minister – just arrived – and the American minister – arriving shortly.
The previous weeks’s programme was rather more Middle East orientated. It featured a substantial interview with the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres (watch it here), followed by a briefer interview with the former Palestinian negotiator Hanan Ashrawi (watch that here). And earlier in the month, the acting Israeli ambassador to London was interviewed on his own.
Zionist plots on these occasions? Don’t be absurd!
Pollard also lambasted us for the paper review. It started with the Middle East, as many papers did, but covered a host of other topics including domestic politics. The two reviewers were chosen to reflect different facets of UK politics, as they usually are. A former Tory MP and a current Labour MEP. In the minority of the review that was devoted to the Middle East, both indicated that they thought the Israeli response disproportionate. In an ideal world we would have two reviewers with differing views on this contentious subject. However the fact that these two distinguished figures both happen to share a perspective does not, surely, disbar them from comment.
The Beeb doesn’t always get it right and this blog is one forum for those of us charged with producing programmes to put our hands up and say “sorry”. Indeed it’s essential that we all consider carefully what we do, strive to follow the 麻豆社 guidelines and admit when we’ve got it wrong. I’m convinced, however, that the Pollard attack was unwarranted.
And I think that a visit to the Sunday AM website, which hosts transcripts of all the interviews - and a record of who appeared each week - will reassure most viewers that our record for fair play remains intact.
Barney Jones is the editor of Sunday AM
- Craig Oliver
- 24 Jul 06, 03:00 PM
Here are some stark statistics:
• Around 30 to 40 people are killed every day in the current Israel/Lebanon conflict.
• About 100 people are killed every day in the violence in Iraq.
• And 1,200 people are killed every day in the war in the Congo.
All three of these stories are due to appear on tonight's Ten O'Clock News. They will probably run in that order - with the Middle East getting by far the most attention.
Does this say something about how we value human life? It's a fair question and one I worry about.
Here is our reasoning for not reversing the order. The war in the Congo has been going on for decades - it is desperately important (as we will reflect tonight), and a story we will keep returning to. Similarly the Ten has led the way in attempting to show the scale of the violence in Iraq in recent months - we have regularly led the programme with stories from there, and the 麻豆社 is the only British broadcaster with a full time commitment to being there.
The Middle East needs more time and space for a variety of reasons:
• The sheer complexity of the situation requires space to help provide context and analysis.
• The current conflict plugs into so many other stories around the world, from what Tony Blair and George W. Bush call the "War on Terror", through to the price of oil, even the situation in Afghanistan.
• Many people fear the consequences of conflict in the Middle East more than anywhere else, and it is our job to help people understand a "scary world".
In short, our judgement is that Middle East is currently the biggest story in the world - by a wide margin - and it has the greatest implications for us all.
Craig Oliver is editor of the Ten O'Clock News
- Adam Curtis
- 24 Jul 06, 02:00 PM
News developments in the Middle East routinely attract the attention of vigorous lobby groups on both sides. The conflict that has erupted so suddenly in Lebanon is no exception.
We are accused of all sorts of twists and spins, such as: "Why do we say that Lebanese have 'died', but that Israelis have 'been killed'?" Or: "Why do you focus on the suffering of Israelis when the Lebanese are suffering in greater numbers?" Or: "Why do you paint the Lebanese as victims when it's their failure to disarm Hezbollah that lies at the root of the trouble?" Or: "Why don't you state openly that the Israeli bombing/Hezbollah rocket attacks are war crimes?"
Readers with strong views about the rights and wrongs of the conflict sometimes read into our coverage a bias or prejudice that is not there. The accusations come from both sides.
The truth is that, in maintaining 24-hour a day coverage of a complex, fast-moving story such as this - constantly updating and reshaping our reports - it is a huge challenge to ensure that we are maintaining absolute balance and impartiality. Undoubtedly, there are times when we don't get it quite right. But we do pay attention to feedback, and we do make adjustments when it seems right to do so.
One of the most difficult issues surrounds the pictures that we use to illustrate our news stories. We come under pressure from some quarters to publish photographs that reflect the full horror of the casualties being inflicted. Such images certainly exist and are freely available on a number of websites.
Our job, as we see it, is to make a judgement about what our audience is likely to feel is appropriate. On the one hand, we do not believe in sanitising the news. On the other, we believe we have the ability, through our reporting, to convey the horror of events without shocking and possibly outraging our readers by showing gruesome images of mutilated corpses.
On occasions we are aware that we come close to crossing the line as to what is acceptable. In such circumstances, we may, like our colleagues in television, adopt the policy of warning our readers that the images they are about to see are likely to be distressing.
But what if the available images of casualties on one side are more harrowing than those on the other? And should we publish more pictures of Lebanese casualties because there are more of them?
In practice, we look at the agency pictures available at any one time and publish a selection that we feel reflects reality. We have no agenda other than to give our readers as accurate a sense as we can of what is happening on the ground.
In doing so, we take note of the 麻豆社 guideline on impartiality, which says in part: "It requires us to be fair and open minded when examining the evidence and weighing all the material facts, as well as being objective and even handed in our approach to a subject. It does not require the representation of every argument or facet of every argument on every occasion or an equal division of time for each view."
Adam Curtis is world editor of the
- Richard Porter
- 21 Jul 06, 11:05 AM
Consider these two items:
• "The sight of a huge flotilla of ships carrying thousands of foreigners out of harm's way has only served to highlight the plight of those left behind. Civilians - mostly, but not exclusively, Lebanese - are the main casualties. There is now a rising chorus of experts who have raised the question of international humanitarian law."
• "British navy warships and helicopters are in Beirut this lunchtime - to rescue more British nationals - trapped by the fighting in Lebanon. They're being loaded on to two Royal Navy vessels - which will take them to Cyprus later this afternoon."
Clearly two news organisations with vastly different views on the main story at midday (UK time) Thursday.
Actually, they're both the 麻豆社. One was 麻豆社 World, broadcasting to audiences outside the UK. The other was 麻豆社 News 24, the domestic news channel. And at lunchtime today we had very different ideas about what we wanted to concentrate on. It's a great thing about the 麻豆社 that we have sufficient editorial independence to be able to make these decisions. Both, in their own way, are very focused on the audiences served by the programmes. Neither (in my view) is more correct than the other.
At 麻豆社 World we have devoted a lot of time to the international operation taking people out of Lebanon. And it's true that we have looked at it more through British eyes - partly because for safety reasons we're sharing a lot of resources with domestic 麻豆社 outlets in Beirut.
But we've also reported on what nations like India, Sri Lanka and Canada have been doing. And we keep coming back to issues facing the people who can't leave the country. One of our longest-serving Middle East correspondents, Jim Muir, is in Tyre in southern Lebanon, which has been very badly hit by the bombardment. Gavin Hewitt has reported on Lebanese people trying to escape to Syria. And of course this is a story with two sides - so our correspondents in northern Israel have been reporting on the consequences of the missile attacks there. News 24 has covered the same issues - and at times we've been "simulcasting" - ie both channels carrying the same coverage, presented from both Beirut and Haifa.
The challenge for us - whether we be serving domestic or international audiences - is not to lose sight of all the issues. It's complicated; it's changing rapidly; opinions are strongly-held on all sides and need to be properly reflected. So even if we spend a few hours of one day focusing on one aspect - such as the British evacuees - we must make sure that over time we keep coming back to the core questions. What's happening now? What caused this? What's going to resolve it? And many others...
Richard Porter is editor of
- David Kermode
- 13 Jul 06, 04:27 PM
The 麻豆社 Chairman Michael Grade joined us on the Breakfast set this morning. Thankfully his visit wasn't unannounced.
Hugo Rifkind, in his Times diary, smells a rat. "It helps to own the airwaves when you have a case to make," says Hugo.
It's certainly true that stories about the 麻豆社 are tricky, when we are the 麻豆社. But I don't think anyone who watched this morning's interview with Michael (watch it here) will have thought that he'd popped in for a cup of tea and a tickle.
Dermot launched straight into the licence fee negotiations, then Sian put him a question about Jonathan Ross's salary - "why so much?". This had nothing to do with her personal predjudices and everything to do with the volume of email and texts this morning on the issue.
Michael told Dermot and Sian they could be earning a lot more in the commercial sector. Then came executive pay - why, when jobs are going, are pay packets getting stuffed at the top? "We need top people" was the Chairman's response.
There were further questions on the kind of programmes the 麻豆社 chooses to make. Are we celebrity obsessed? Are there too many repeats? After around six minutes of grilling, we let him go. To suggest that Michael got an easy ride would be nonsense. He was treated just like any other public servant being held to account.
Hugo will know that journalists tend to respond very badly to being told to stick to a particular line, or giving someone an easy ride. The 麻豆社's newsroom is robustly resistant to corporate interference, to the extent that no-one really bothers to try as far I can tell. Ordering 麻豆社 journalists around is like trying to herd cats. And anyway, I'm sure Michael Grade would have been horrified if we'd suggested he might like to tell us what to ask him.
That said, I did have a twitchy moment, watching this morning's interview. I was convinced he'd been knighted a while back - and thought we'd neglected a 'Sir' (it turns out he got a CBE). Had I got my hands on the introductory script, I might have knighted him. I fear that might have undermined all of the above.
David Kermode is editor of
- Vicky Taylor
- 13 Jul 06, 12:49 PM
Words, as any journalist knows, can be loaded. One which has cropped up and led to lots of conversations in some blogs is "dhimmi". It's not a very well-known word (it's not in the Oxford English Dictionary, for instance), but it is one which raises passions.
"Dhimmi" refers historically to non-Muslims living in Islamic states whose religion was tolerated as long as they accepted the supremacy of the Islamic state. It is now used, sometimes in the word "dhimmitude", to mean "situations where non-Muslims in the West are allegedly championing Islamic causes above others" ().
Recently in our Have Your Say discussions, "dhimmi" has been used in a context which breaches our , specifically that posts should not be abusive, offensive or provocative. Some users have tried to register with names using variations of "dhimmi", again sometimes in an offensive way. When we spotted this trend, we put the word "dhimmi" on our automated list of blocked words, mostly swearing and racially offensive terms. That meant that any reference to "dhimmi" would mean the posting was automatically deleted. (Having a blocked list means it's possible to filter out abuse and ensure comments do not break any laws - especially useful since our debates get several thousand messages each day.)
On reflection, though, it's clear that the word "dhimmi" can be used in the modern sense in a non-abusive way, so we've decided that it should not now be blocked. The list of blocked words is a moving object - words and meanings do change from time to time - so we'll monitor how the debate goes.
Getting the balance right between freedom of speech and removing offensive content can be difficult at times. We do have our rules, which we enforce, because we want the debates on our site to reflect intelligent, informed and legally expressed opinions. But we're not interested in stopping discussion - that, after all, is the point.
Vicky Taylor is editor of Interactivity.
- Matt Morris
- 6 Jul 06, 09:49 AM
Couldn't you tell it was going to happen...?
The lack of penetration in spite of Wayne Rooney's bustling. The way the ball bounced off Peter Crouch, no matter how gently it was played up to him. Frank Lampard's unconvincing air of assurance as he walked up to take the first penalty. A nation was deeply upset by the success of the Portuguese; though in the Farmers' Arms in Llangennech on Saturday night, there was little sympathy for England fans among the assembled Welshmen (and they were all men, except for the woman behind the bar).
So now St George's cross is disappearing from cars, white vans and people carriers. But we on Five Live are having to give some thought to what the cross represents - or, more accurately, to whether it can be taken to represent any political party. It came about because of the contribution of a guest on Victoria Derbyshire's programme on 5 May...
Continue reading "St George's Cross"
- Kevin Marsh
- 27 Jun 06, 11:26 AM
So this is the editors' blog. But what do we mean by "editor"?
The first thing to note is that the person who edits a particular edition of a programme - what we call "the output editor" - is not necessarily "the Editor".
So what's the difference?
As with all the best questions the honest answer is - it depends. On some programmes, there's less difference than on others - often the Editor will be the output editor on any particular day. But in broad terms, the output editor is responsible for one edition of a programme; the Editor for the programme, and the team, over time.
So what does being responsible "over time" mean ?
Every programme has a programme remit - a description of the programme, its key features and in particular the features that make it original and distinctive. Some are written down, though most programme remits are less formally set out and often agreed only verbally with Department Heads. That doesn't make them any less binding on the Editor. Recently, objectives dealing with aspects such as audience size and appreciation have supplemented or even superseded formal programme remits.
In addition to these, all Editors set themselves objectives when they get the job. The selection process demands detailed pitch which can include anything from changes in programme agenda and tone, to changes of presenters or personnel - or even what shouldn't be changed.
The tools the Editor has are limited. Money is one; you have to manage the programme budget - which includes the annual argument for more (you always end up with less) as well as making it all add up at the end of the financial year, having spent a proportion of it on things intended to achieve your objectives. Staff is another; you appoint - or supervise the appointment of - staff, appraise them, decide who does what on the programme, give them feedback and advise them on their performance.
The other tools - the really powerful ones - are less easily defined. Influence... setting the programme weather... stalking the floor... hunting down inaccuracies... generating an atmosphere where originality can flourish... spotting flair and encouraging it... spotting bad habits and discouraging them... knowing whose case you need to be on, who you can cut a bit of slack. And dealing with The Talent - the presenters, the real power-mongers in the 麻豆社.
And Editors will have influence over programme decisions, though different Editors have different approaches. Clearly, as Editor you have to make the calls on the big, risky stories. And you have to have the means in place to make sure you know all you need to know before making those big calls; and the nous to know when someone on an even higher grade than yourself should be aware of the risks you're about to take on the 麻豆社's behalf.
But you can't - and shouldn't - make every decision. Though you do have to be prepared to take the rap for decisions made in your absence or ignorance, even if you'd have made a different one based on the same facts. There are two phrases no Editor should ever use outside the programme. "It wasn't my fault" is one. "I didn't know" is the other. Both might be true in fact, but never can be in spirit; and anyway, the skill of the Editor lies in making sure they never are in any sense. It is your fault and you did know. Live with it.
And output editors? In the broadest sense, output editors are responsible for everything that happens on their watch. Which may be anything from a day to a couple of hours. They don't work in a vacuum, though - indeed, it's the Editor's job to make sure they don't. If the programme Editor has done the job properly, output editors will know as clearly as possible the direction they should be taking each edition of the programme.
They'll express that direction by a number of means; they'll choose the lead story and the running order... choose the guests... and the way stories are treated. They'll also be responsible for getting the best out of the team that day; running meetings and discussions creatively... chasing progress and keeping the story in sight. They'll stamp on inaccuracies and keep a mental note of fairness and balance; they'll brief reporters and presenters and give feedback after the programme.
They'll also know when to involve the Editor. Some output editors prefer to avoid discussing anything with the Editor until after transmission; others like to feel they've thrashed out their ideas - and their problems - beforehand. In all cases, though, having antennae for the possible consequences of decisions - consequences that may go way beyond a single edition of the programme - is a key requirement of both output editor and Editor. The first has to know when to consult, the second has to learn how to spot the signs that an apparently straightforward decision might turn out to be anything but.
Which leads to the final responsibility of the Editor; accountability. While the output editor will deal with the small rows around a particular programme - and some are inevitable - it is the Editor who has to explain why decisions were made or how - in spite of evidence to the contrary - the programme did uphold the highest standards and values.
Or if it didn't, apologise.
Kevin Marsh is editor of the 麻豆社 College of Journalism
- Kevin Marsh
- 20 Jun 06, 01:31 PM
Is it the job of a newspaper to "represent" its readers?
Tweak (or wrench) the paper’s news agenda to reflect readers’ prejudices – I get. Argue for and defend those prejudices – I get that too. And campaigning on their behalf – of course.
All good stuff, well within the finest traditions of Britain’s lippy, gutsy, argumentative, pluralist press.
But “represent”?
That’s what the claims it does – or has been doing with its campaign for a so-called “Sarah’s Law”; a law that would enable local people to find out if a convicted paedophile were living in their neighbourhood.
It was in response to the , the Chief Constable of Dyfed-Powys and the child protection spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (listen to it here).
The Chief Constable’s criticisms of both the paper and Government was tough; likening the relationship between Ministers and the tabloid press to that between blackmailer and victim. And the World Tonight listeners who joined the debate seemed to share his view.
It’s absurd to argue that newspapers aren’t political players; campaigning does – and probably should – influence Governments, change public sentiment or the law. All the best campaigning journalism has a moral component; “stop this evil now.”
But can campaigning newspapers “represent” anyone?
They can speak for them; articulate their views, or what they perceive them to be; hunt out the facts to confirm their readers’ views of the world. Press the case hard. And in doing all of that they play an important role in our messy and sometimes fuzzy democracy – but do they, can they, “represent” anyone?
There’s a confusion here about the role of elected politicians and their non-elected critics. Editors have the right - the duty - to call for the heads of elected politicians they and their readers think have failed; and they have the right and duty to put the evidence that they’ve failed in front of their readers. That’s accountability.
But that doesn’t put them in the same place in our democracy as elected politicians - for the simple reason that they represent no-one but themselves.
I can’t un-elect the editor of the News of the World, even if I want to. I can’t hold him to account for the consequences of his campaigns - intended and unintended.
That’s fine so long as he doesn’t claim to “represent” me - for better or worse, I am one of his readers.
But once he does claim to represent me, then I want to ask him some awkward questions.
The obvious ones, like - how does he choose which readers he represents and which he doesn’t ? How do I change his mind or get him fired?
Or; what if he fails the readers he chooses to “represent”? What if the Government decides in the end that “Sarah’s Law” would be the charter for vigilantism that some claim and ? Does he apologise to those he “represents” and resign because he’s failed to get them the law?
Or; what if he succeeds and “Sarah’s Law” is enacted? And grows? Does he take responsibility for the unintended consequence and compensate the victims? And does he resign, just as he’d call for an elected politician to resign whose legislation went similarly awry?
The press may be many things; argumentative and campaigning; a powerful and legitimate force in democracy, certainly.
But “representative”? I think not.
Kevin Marsh is editor of the 麻豆社 College of Journalism
- Peter Barron
- 8 Jun 06, 03:15 PM
Since our investigation into Arsenal's secret loans last week the press and blogosphere have gone into overdrive, and it's been suggested in that our motivation was linked to the fact that I'm a "devoted Spurs fan".
Certainly Spurs are my team of choice, but I think devoted is putting it a bit strongly - I hold no season tickets or bonds or club memberships and in fact have been to Highbury far more often than to White Hart Lane on account of the fact that some of my best friends are Gooners.
I know some Spurs fans hate Arsenal and vice versa, but isn't it time to get over that? We have a few devoted football fanatics on the programme - Michael Crick's devotion to Man United is well known, Peter Marshall lives for Liverpool, deputy editor Daniel Pearl is an Arsenal (yes Arsenal) season ticket holder - but I can't claim to be one of them.
Would it matter if I was? While only a small number of Newsnight employees follow football with a passion, all of them follow politics and presumably hold views and in some cases membership cards (though for the record I've never belonged to a political party either). As 麻豆社 employees they are required to leave their personal views at the door when they come to work.
When our producer Meirion Jones brought me the story I didn't think for a second: here's a good way to get back for that lasagne incident, not least because he first raised it about two years ago. I simply thought: this is potentially a very good story about the state of modern soccer, whose salaries, payments and bungs have been an issue of huge concern.
And to those of you who say this is not the most serious thing that's ever happened in football, you may well be right. We'd be delighted to hear more stories about football's murky deals, no matter which clubs, countries or associations are involved.
Peter Barron is editor of Newsnight
- Jon Williams
- 8 Jun 06, 11:16 AM
The following 麻豆社 television's decision to appoint a Diversity Executive.
Why is it that everyone seems to think that "diversity" is just about race? Six months ago I agreed to become the diversity champion for the news division. I did it because I believe 麻豆社 News has to reflect the UK all our audiences are part of.
For me diversity is about a whole variety of things; age, views, tone of voice, class and sexuality - as well as race. It's not about box ticking, or political correctness. It is about serving the people who pay our wages - ensuring they see themselves and their life experiences reflected in our output.
The alternative is we simply report the bit we, mainly white, middle class, university educated journalists live in. That's a recipe for certain disaster. Already younger audiences watch and listen to the 麻豆社 less than they once did; young black audiences watch and listen even less. More than two thirds of UK homes now have multi-channel television; digital radio has transformed listening for millions across Britain.
At the point at which our audience think the 麻豆社 is out of touch and failing to report the stories, the issues and the people that they're interested, they've got plenty of other channels to turn to - not just for News, but for soaps, entertainment and music too. So why should they tune to the 麻豆社? Since they pay their licence fees too, that's potentially a huge problem for us!
Back in March, Mark Thompson unveiled his vision for the 麻豆社's Creative Future - one in which audiences are at the centre of everything we do. So the appointment of a diversity executive to look after television is common sense. This is about so much more than political correctness. The stakes couldn't be higher; it's about a 麻豆社 that remains relevant to all our audiences, ensuring its very survival in an increasingly competitive media world.
Jon Williams is world news editor
- David Kermode
- 7 Jun 06, 04:54 PM
This came through our 'duty log' for feedback this morning:
"[Caller] feels that the background studio colours used by the programme are politically motivated. "I have noticed that they have been a red colour since the late 1990s and have now changed to a blue colour. Is this political psychology? I think the 麻豆社 are using background colours to influence people's political thinking."
What this particular viewer neglected to mention was that we have, this week, 'warmed up' our studio to incorporate far more oranges and a bit of brown. Does this mean we've switched allegiance to the Liberal Democrats?
If so, we'd be a pollster's nightmare. The ultimate swing voter. We'd have backed all three main parties in a month.
I'm not sure whether there could be any subliminal advantage for a particular party in news branding? Personally, I suspect our viewers wouldn't fall for it, even if there was.
We have run into these sort of problems before. When we launched our general election coverage with an ambitious outside broadcast from Bristol, it poured with rain. Dermot broadcast the entire show protected by a 麻豆社 Breakfast umbrella, in our house colours back then - red and yellow.
We had three complaints about the absence of blue in our brolly, including one man who wrote to me suggesting the choice of umbrella reflected Dermot Murnaghan's own political preferences. I wrote back to our viewer, assuring him that, to my knowledge, Dermot had never revealed anything about his political persuasion and that he'd certainly not got involved in the programme umbrella ordering process.
Anyway, try putting red, yellow and blue together. It might look balanced - but it also looks hideous.
David Kermode is editor of
The Guardian: Interview with Newsnight's Martha Kearney - "Jeremy Paxman winds her up about doing Woman's Hour endlessly - she will walk into the Newsnight studio and, in front of guests, he'll tweet: 'Any jam recipes, Martha?'" ().
The Telegraph: "Jack Straw, the Leader of the Commons, said he believed newscasters were overpaid and mocked those who "prance" around studios" ().
The Guardian: "Breakfast DJ Chris Moyles yesterday clashed with Oscar-winning actor Halle Berry after she accused him of having "a racist moment" live on air" ().
The Sun: "This is the mystery TV pundit Guy Goma mistakenly grilled by 麻豆社 reporters" (, or read our exclusive from yesterday here).
The Telegraph: Craig Brown - "Virtually everyone interviewed on the radio and television news is either pretending to know something he doesn't, or pretending not to know something he does" ().
The Guardian: Tim Dowling - "I should have asked for a driver. At least then there might have been a chance of them interviewing him instead of me" ().
Daily Express: Patrick O'Flynn - "A rival form of extremism is tightening its grip over our politics - its influence is far-reaching within the judiciary, government and the 麻豆社".
You can read previous '麻豆社 in the news' posts by clicking here.
- Paul Brannan
- 15 May 06, 04:38 PM
Should the 麻豆社 News website link to the BNP's online pages? In doing so are we driving traffic to the party's "ignorant, hateful and cowardly" content, as one complainant insists?
The disclaimer that "the 麻豆社 is not responsible for external sites" cuts little ice: "I am not asking the 麻豆社 to take responsibility for the racist content of this particular website, but you must take responsibility for linking to this vile content."
The easy thing to do would be to adopt an all-or-nothing policy. After all, if people really want to find their way to this kind of material then Google is only a click away. Why help the process? A blanket ban would relieve us of the Wisdom of Solomon judgement calls.
So, for that matter, would a policy of linking to anything and everything and that would certainly chime with web audiences who see editorialising as censorship.
In reality we make decisions on which sites to link to on a case-by-case basis and we consider them carefully, in relation to the news agenda and the context around each story. In general, we link to sites where there is sufficient editorial justification. We take into account the 麻豆社 guidelines on harm and offence and the law relating to such matters as defamation or incitement to racial hatred.
And as far as the BNP is concerned we have not in general linked to their site but, in the interests of impartiality, we have done so during election periods. Sure, we drive traffic to the site but click-throughs don't necessarily convert to support for the party. In fact, the opposite may be true.
Paul Brannan is the deputy editor of the
The 麻豆社 is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
