- Mike Rudin
- 16 Feb 07, 04:37 PM
I certainly agree with the comments about the need to remember how tragic the events of 9/11 were.
There should be no escaping the fact that nearly three thousand innocent people lost their lives that day.
But I donβt think that respect for the victims and their relatives is a reason to avoid reporting why so many innocent people lost their lives.
It does mean that we should report sensitively.
We hope we have done so in our film about 9/11. And we hear from the sister of a man who lost his life at the World Trade Centre. It is important that the voice of people such as Cheryl Shames is heard.
You cannot ignore the fact that there are a lot of questions about what exactly happened on 9/11.
Chris Townsend makes the valid point that the sheer number of conspiracies should not be mistaken for the depth and breadth of evidence supporting them.
But again I donβt think that is a reason to avoid investigating the questions that have been raised. In fact I think the sheer number of questions is one reason why they should be properly investigated.
I think that any subsequent investigation should be based firmly on the evidence. And we have tried wherever possible to speak to eyewitnesses and to find hard documentary evidence.
Have a look at our section on our website, where we have set out the arguments for and against, and the evidence we have found.
Youβll have to watch on Sunday and make your own mind up how well we answered the many questions that have been raised.
Mike Rudin, series producer of Who's Watching You and The Conspiracy Files
- Peter Horrocks
- 16 Feb 07, 02:19 PM
On Tuesday, ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ news programmes all reported - that they experience significantly lower levels of personal kindness than children in many other countries. On Wednesday, programmes began to report the death of 15-year-old Billy Cox, itself a pretty extreme example of lack of personal kindness.
In TV News it was discussed intensively on Thursday morning as to how these stories might be connected and what the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's responsibilities are. In particular, how to report a crime that could potentially make our children feel more vulnerable and in turn create the circumstances where fear and further crime increase?
In raising this question, some journalists were anxious in case we downplayed or suppressed a story that is clearly dramatic and important. So we discussed ways in which the shooting could be reported fairly but minimised the impact on children. We talked about a number of creative treatments, many of which influenced our subsequent coverage:
• Give the context that gun crime has been falling in London.
• Explain that gun crime is concentrated predominantly in small parts of our main cities.
• Hear from adults and children who are taking action against crimes.
• Work closely with colleagues in areas like Newsround and 1Xtra who have better contacts and experience.
• Take advice from ethnic minority colleagues who may have a fresh perspective on the story.
• Explain the language and assumptions in reports. For instance, exactly what is a gang?
• Constantly question whether the writing and reporting creates negative stereotypes of children that go beyond what is justified by the facts.
There is no doubt that the simple headline fact of a 15-year-old shot in his own home may alarm many parents but the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ surely has a responsibility not to add unnecessarily to the anxieties seen so vividly in Unicef's report on the state of mind of our young.
Peter Horrocks is head of ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Newsroom
- Alistair Burnett
- 16 Feb 07, 08:24 AM
Catholics set to pass Anglicans as leading UK church - that was the in the Times on Thursday - the story was based on a report from Cambridge University into the lives of Catholic immigrants, which also predicted that the number of regular Catholic churchgoers will soon overtake Anglicans on present trends. It was not a story - or rather a prediction - that got much coverage on the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ. Why?
In our editorial meeting, one of the team had pitched it as a story, but in between the government's over its consultation on nuclear power or Peter Hain's on inequality, the consensus was it didn't quite make it as a story for that day's programme.
Earlier in the day, I was doing a Q&A for a training workshop for journalists where we were discussing The World Tonight's editorial agenda and the question of whether the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's coverage of religion and religious issues is fair came up, following recent criticism of the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's journalism from some of the churches and other religious groups.
This got me thinking. Are we fair in the way we cover religions and religious issues? Now, I don't accept the idea put forward by prominent Christians that there is a secular ideology that prevents religions and religious viewpoints from getting a fair hearing. To me, the use of the term ideology presumes some kind of organised system of thought, while it seems to me that the real concern of organised religions is that in pluralistic societies their beliefs are afforded equivalence with any or all other beliefs while the nature of faith is such that it precludes a relativist approach.
But coming back to the editorial meeting, I wonder whether we decided the story about attendances at Catholic Church being set to overtake those of their Anglican equivalents didn't make it, not because we are followers of a secular ideology, but because many of us lack empathy with the religious worldview, and so we underestimate the importance of religious stories, unless they relate to other more political issues like equal rights for homosexuals or women - hence we cover the debate over the Catholic Church's for their adoption agencies to opt out of anti-discrimination legislation or the in the Anglican church over attitudes to homosexuality.
If this is the case, then it is surprising given the increasingly important role of religion in world affairs over the past two decades or so.
Alistair Burnett is editor of the World Tonight
Daily Mail: Richard Littlejohn responds to Kevin Marshβs recent comments here about his column. ()
The Guardian: βAshley Highfield, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's director of future media and technology, has outlined plans that could see the iPlayer available via TV, and indicate how the corporation hopes to secure the future of Freeview.β ()
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