and cyril smith also in the news this week, neville dalton felt: "news reports are rapidly turning into ‘sewer news‘ in which broadcasters are taking a disproportionate and very unhealthy interest." hazel murie wanted to know: "why is this deemed worthy of endless coverage on your news broadcasts, and why must i endure the lurid details of this person's revolting perversions? i think the bbc needs to consider very carefully, both what you cover on the news but also how much detail it has been your top story for days now. it is getting to the point where i don't know who i am. all she is asking is for £54 a week.

derek heart was concerned that the implementation of universal credit gave a biassed picture. the focus on a valid case is a gross simplification and deliberately plays on viewers emotions. the previous system gave rise to even more problems and hardships as were previously reported. painting the government as callus and ignoring the problems is not true. every week we hear about certain words and phrases used by bbc news presenters which really seem to annoy some of you, and one example was identified by dr ian barnish in an email to us on monday. "i am fed up to the back teeth with the bbc‘s use of the word ‘special‘, especially in news and politics programmes. for example, special correspondent, special programme, special report. without a definition of special, this is meaningless drivel. please desist." let's hope ian wasn't

watching the news at ten the following evening, which began like this. tonight at ten, a special report on the record number of people dying from heroin and morphine addiction. good evening, we start tonight with a special report on the surge in deaths from heroin addiction across the uk. this extended report by our special correspondent ed thomas does contain images and details of drug abuse from the start. the "special" report that followed traced the increase in deaths from heroin and morphine in hard—hitting detail, and heard the case for the decriminalisation of the personal use of those drugs. county durham, searching for the next hit. i haven't got time to look for a job. being a drug addict is a full—time job. every day, the same. by the time i do get sorted, it's time to start all over again. i'm not letting them in! what are you doing, then? getting something. and this is lisa's life. a mother ruled by heroin. i've put it before my children. do you need heroin more than your children?

yeah, ido. there was praise on social media for that report from ed thomas, with sean mcpartlin calling it an... "excellent piece...thoughtful and challenging." while philip erskine described himself as "very moved". others, though, objected to this topic occupying the first ten minutes of the bbc‘s flagship news bulletin. tim sansom asked: "why did the bbc 10:00pm news run a lead story which had no relevance to tuesday's news? there were big stories that day!" and rosemary hutton agreed: "while this is a very important subject, i do not think it was appropriate for the headline news item on the main evening news. it would be a more appropriate item for panorama." a different complaint was raised about pictures of drug—taking which, although we haven't repeated here on newswatch, were contained in the report. when a shorter version was shown the following day on the victoria derbyshire show, it was with an on—screen warning — but that didn't appear on the news at ten. here's a viewer called b hobson: "i have been totally shocked

at the film accompanying the headline report on drugs. must such graphic images be used? they have just shown people injecting, showing innocent young people what to do. please, we know it goes on, but must this be shown?" and a twitter used called db echoed that: "mortified that the bbc feel the need to show people getting heroin ready to inject. not what i need to see on a tuesday night." well, with me now is paul royall, editor of the bbc‘s news at six and news at ten. hard—hitting, lots of viewers agree, but ten minutes at the top of the bulletin? yes, it was a seven and a half minute report, and there was a live interview with ed thomas off the back. there are certain stories where there is perhaps more depth, analysis and explanation, and sort of a solution to the problem that we want to get into, so we felt this was one of those occasions where it justified a longer piece. we don't do it every week. we don't do it every month, we perhaps do it six or seven times a year, where we have those slightly longer, deeper, more analytical pieces.

a lot of viewers would say, fine, but make it a proper panorama. because again and again, viewers tell newswatch, they turn on the news at ten because they want to find out what were the big news stories that day. and that day there was harvey weinstein, catalonia, brexit, all pushed down the running order. and how many news stories are pushed off the running order by this? if, because we were doing seven or eight minutes on a very, very important and a good piece about heroin abuse, if that was going to relegate what we regard as really, really important other news stories that were only going to exist on that day, then we would find a different day to run the heroin piece. and so, we did do thejob losses at bae, we did do brexit, we did do catalonia, we did do the latest on harvey weinstein. there wasn't a story at the end of the day which we felt had missed out because of this piece. let's talk about the images. it was very close up on people preparing and in the act of injecting heroin. there were angles that meant we didn't see the needle going in, but many viewers felt it was unnecessarily shocking and graphic.

why did you need to show them? yeah, they are. i totally understand they are shocking and graphic images. huw edwards put a warning in the introduction to the piece to say there would be images of drug abuse. but that applies to a lot of news stories that we do, if we are covering war zones, famines. and we took care to ensure that we could do a piece about heroin abuse and demonstrate what goes on without going so far in the piece that actually we were taking images too far. 0r showing people the abc on how to take heroin, which we didn't do. although some people thought that. what about the consent of the addicts? some people would have felt it was quite exploitative, and the question of legality, broadcasting them using? no guidelines were breached or overridden to make this piece. and everyone involved in the piece had fully consented and we had gone through the proper processes for that. seriously, talking about people

who are so drug—addicted they say they value drugs more than their children, you are saying that there are no concerns about how informed that consent is? there are concerns, but this piece was a long time in the making. we worked with all the relevant people and authorities to make sure we had the duty of care and could be as careful as we could be, and that process is going on after the report has gone out as well. and on the legality issue, they are doing something illegal on camera. how does that square with the guidelines? well, within the guidelines, we show crimes taking place sometimes, if we're doing court reports sometimes and things like that, the guidelines do allow for that. they were doing it in front of the cameras, kind of for the cameras. as long as it is editorially justified. they were not doing it for the cameras, that's their daily life, unfortunately. so it's editorially justified, is it? it is editoriallyjustified. there is a sense from our viewers that with reports like this, they feel like sometimes they are more aimed at impressing otherjournalists and other editors, and maybe winning awards. and maybe they don't consider what the audience want

when they turn on the daily news bulletin and want a half—hour round—up of the world's events. this is something that's going on in cities up and down the uk every day, all the time. the bbc established the record number of deaths that are now occurring — at a record high because of this. the amount of crime that is connected to it, carried out by people who are serious drug users, and the cost to the country, which is something around £15 billion. so on that basis you would make the argument that this is a highly relevant, important story. it didn'tjust happen on that day. i accept there wasn't a report out that day from the government, say, talking about drug abuse, but certain stories are happening every day, take longer to get together, and we feel it's right at certain times to have them on the programme. paul royall, thank you so much. finally, let's take you back to last saturday afternoon, when an incident near the natural history museum in london initially looked as if it isn't a terrorism related incident.

you can call us. 0re—mail: you can find us on twitter. have a look at our website. the address is: that's all from us. we will be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again next week. bye—bye. well, there is a lot happening on the weather front right now. we have got some fine weather on the way. that's on one hand. 0n the other hand, we are also watching a hurricane way to the south of us. you can see there is spain, the

coast of africa and this is hurricane 0phelia. the storm is heading in our direction. it is going to fall apart by the time it reaches the british isles, but we are infor reaches the british isles, but we are in for some windy weather. but not in the short—term. in the short—term quite the opposite. it is going to be relatively calm and warm. infact going to be relatively calm and warm. in fact that storm way to the south of us will be responsible for drawing in more warm tropical air in oui’ drawing in more warm tropical air in our direction, but in the short—term we have got sunny spells around on saturday. a little bit of rain there in the far north—west of the uk. so i think for the western isles, maybe northern ireland, more cloud here. look at the temperatures, in the mid—and the high teens. hull at 20 celsius. the temperatures depend all on how much sunshine we are going to get. if it stays overcast, which we don't think will be the case, the temperatures will hover around 19. if the sun breaks through the layer of cloud and you get a long sunny spell, the temperatures may get up to 22 celsius for example on

saturday, but not here in the far north—west. here we are close to a weather front. this is north—west. here we are close to a weatherfront. this is not the re m na nts of weatherfront. this is not the remnants of any storm yet at this stage. this isjust rainfall that's sliding across the north—west. look at that. still a southerly wind and again on sunday where the clouds break we could get up to around about 22 or 23 celsius, and maybe higher than that. now, the top we will get is about 24 celsius and that's given we get a lot of sunshine around and this is across southern parts of england. back to the storm, so ex—0phelia by this stage, passing this is spain here france and it looks as though at the moment the worst of the weather is going to go into ireland and affect western and north western parts of the uk, but i don't want you to take this track precisely as it is depicted here. it could be a shift towards the left or the right. still some uncertainty, but it is generally heading in our direction. let's summarize this. it is going to bea let's summarize this. it is going to be a warm weekend. if we get a lot of sunshine. we will be watching

that ex—out there in the atlantic and potentially some windy weather around on monday and wet too. this is bbc news. the headlines at 8pm. president trump sets out a new, more aggressive strategy for iran as he refuses to continue certifying an international nuclear deal. we cannot and will not make this certification. we will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence. tehran and other signatories to the deal insist they will stand by it as the eu says the agreement is not for the eu says the agreement is not for the us to break. it does not belong to any single country and it is not up to any single country to terminate it. the chancellor philip hammond says he regrets his poor choice of words after describing the eu's brexit negotiators as "the enemy". more accusations of sexual assault have been made against the hollywood producer harvey weinstein.

the us actress rose mcgowan is the latest