now it's time for newswatch. this week, samira ahmed looks at a new initiative on bbc news based on solutions, rather than problems. hello and welcome to newswatch, with me, samira ahmed. looking for good news — the bbc has a plan to report on possible solutions to some of the world's entrenched divisions. and did it deserve top billing on friday? arsene wenger‘s departure as manager of arsenal. the week started with news that was always likely to prompt a frenzy of excitement among some, and get others composing their e—mails of complaint. after a morning of anticipation, monday's news at one was able to report this. now, we have some newsjust in — the duchess of cambridge has given birth to a baby boy. she's at the lindo wing of london's st mary's hospital. our royal correspondent sarah campbell

is outside the hospital, sarah. indeed, reeta, injust the last few seconds, the announcement that the british royal family has a new member, a prince... ernest worting was one of those left less than enchanted. but charlotte barry was more impressed. after lunch, the wait was on for the first glimpse of the new arrival, and that well—known royal lover simon mccoy was all agog on afternoon live. uh... there's a door, there's a policeman. where is the baby? look, can you see in the mirror in the doorway? look at the photographers and the cameras that you can see, hundreds who are waiting outside.

audience reaction continued to come in, with michael expressing his views like this... well, the two main participants in that forthcoming royal wedding were conducting more sombre duties on wednesday. here is nicholas witchell. first light at the australia and new zealand war memorials in london on anzac day. a commemoration attended this year by prince harry and meghan markle, in particular remembrance of the thousands of troops from australia and new zealand who lost their lives in the gallipoli campaign in the first world war 103 years ago. catherine e—mailed her thoughts

about the coverage. now, if royal coverage is one regular bugbear of some members of the audience, another is the prominence given on bbc news to stories about football. that objection came up against wrong with that friday, when arsenal manager arsene wenger announced he was leaving hisjob after 22 years. more than six minutes at the start of the news at six were devoted to the subject, eliciting dozens of reactions like this one from brian price. what with all that's going on in this country, and most importantly the rest of the world, i have great difficulty in accepting that the most important lead, headline, top of the bill news article tonight was about a football manager resigning from his job. not only that, but the article seemed to drag on for ever, therefore leaving much less time for syria, russia, the salisbury poisonings, acid attacks, bombings, knifings, plastic in the sea, murders, brexit et cetera. in fact, just about every other article in the news

carried far more gravitas. or was itjust because the bbc thought we were in need of something trivial? do let us know your thoughts on all the issues we featured today or on any aspect of bbc news, details of how to contact us at the end of the programme. now, bbc news kicked off a new season called crossing divides this week on its domestic and international outlets, via television, radio and digital. the idea behind it is to look at the way people are connecting across the lines that separate them, be they religious, political or cultural. we're going to discuss this with a bbc editor, but first here are some examples of the output, starting with a report from mark easton in rotherham. how many people here formed a new friendship as a result of national citizen service? and who is your friendship with? ncs, for me, is a fantastic tool to bring young people together from different backgrounds and make

sure that they can come together and learn from one another and develop an understanding and appreciation of difference. each class here has two teachers. one speaks arabic, and the other teacher speaks hebrew. they think the children get so much more to hear two language. language is the basic thing to live together. without it, you can't do it. pretty red family. very far to the left. all right, so welcome to this presentation and conversation about better angels and de—polarising america. well, the crossing divides season springs from an initiative on bbc news called solutions focused journalism,

and leading it is emily kasriel, who's with me now. all these films have run amid the usual news coverage and tv and so on. how many are there, and how long is the season? so there are over a0 stories that we're featuring, both from the uk and from across the world, and the season has been running all week. but all the stories will still be available afterwards on the website. and what is the purpose behind it? it's all about looking for stories which are about bringing people together across these divides, and i think the reason is that there's an increasing sense of polarisation in fact, a poll that ipsos mori did for the bbc, which we used to kick off the season, show that in the uk almost three quarters of the people in great britain thought that the country had become more divided than ten years ago, and of course we've also got part of one of our public purposes is to contribute to social cohesion.

we certainly know newswatch that a number of people say they are increasingly fed up with relentlessly bad news — is there a sense that you're trying to counter bad news? well, i think it's important for journalists to talk about the world in an accurate way and give an accurate picture of the world, and that includes bad news, and in fact of course our brains are primed to find and spot and remember bad stories, because we have to avoid the tigers on the savanna. but i think that, in a way, unconsciously, a lot ofjournalists think that traditionally a story has to be bad to make it a news story. and bad news also makes big, dramatic pictures. so it is important to show an accurate picture of the world, to also show the way that people solving their problems in coming up with solutions, as well as talking about the problems of the world. which raises the question, is the bbc actually trying to offer solutions? it's a very good question, and in fact that's why we decided

to call the work solutions focused journalism, because we're not creating solutions, we're just focusing on solutions, the same way that we also focus on problems. how do you choose which schemes to cover? the rotherham example, mark easton‘s piece — of course, the town had been the focus of a terrible scandal, was it deliberate to go looking there for a solution? i think it's interesting to look at a place which has been very divided for a number of different reasons, but i think another reason is that the story that mark focused on, the national citizen service, is all about bringing people together. in this case, two goals from very different backgrounds brought together through trampolining, and that particular national citizen service has had a lot of strong evidence which shows that it is very, very successful in contributing to better relationships across divides. people might see a danger in that, the bbc actually, you know, behaving like a government agency itself, promoting things like the national citizen service, which is quite controversial

for how much it has cost. they can be a lot of different reasons that we choose to cover stories, but the same way that we focus on problems, we are not looking to promote the problems, we'rejust choosing to focus on solutions in addition to focusing on problems. but, and this is really important, this isn't about positive news, it's about looking with rigour, asking tough questions, asking for evidence, and seeing if this particular solution can scale, or is itjust restricted to a particular community and a particular context? if you're going to do that, presumably you have to go back to these places, the israeli school with the arab jewish teachers and children, these reports seem very small, optimistic snapshots about what they're trying to achieve — are you going to go back and follow them up? it would be great to go and follow the stories up, and in fact that's something that a lot of our viewers sometimes criticise the bbc, that we focus just when there's a problem and don't actually follow up and see how people themselves are solving their problems over a period of time. so i think it's a very good point. emily kasriel, thank you very much. you're most welcome. finally, with more and more material of news programmes being filmed

by members of the public on mobile phones and submitted to or acquired by broadcasters, you'll have noticed that much of it is filmed vertically, with gaps on either side of the screen, as with our viewers‘s contribution earlier in the programme. it is an issue that concerns alan broadfield, who is described it as... thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions on bbc news or current affairs or even appear on the programme, you can call or e—mail us. horizontal videos preferred but not compulsory. you can find us on twitter and do have a look at our website for previous discussions. we will be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again next week. good evening.

it's been a bit of a mixed day today, we have had a lot of cloud around, some outbreaks of rain across much of england and wales, a bit more sunshine for part of scotland and northern ireland, but also some showers around. this picture was taken by one of our weather watchers in perth & kinross earlier in the day. now, heading on through this evening and tonight, then, we'll keep the cloud across much of england and wales with patchy rain easing towards the east. further north, though, clear skies for the far north of england, scotland and northern ireland, it's here that were likely to see a fairly chilly and frosty start to saturday morning, milder in the south with a lot of cloud around. now, what is the weekend looking like? well, it is looking fairly cool and cloudy overall, some sunshine for northern and western parts, the potential for really heavy rain in the south—east later on sunday. we'll look at that in a moment.

for saturday, then, not a bad day for the north—western of the country, some sunny spells, a few showers for scotland, northern ireland too. england and wales keeps the bulk of the cloud with some outbreaks of showery rain, so if we focus in on the regional view, for southern england and wales, some showers around, north wales, through the midlands as well during the afternoon, a bit more brightness breaking through for northern england and northern ireland, a scattering of showers here, more showers feeding into northern and western parts of scotland, the best of the brightness towards the likes of aberdeenshire and fife too. now, temperatures on saturday still struggling for the time of year, particularly when you've got all that cloud, just eight or nine degrees through part of the midlands, north england too. a little bit warmer than that where you see sunny spells. now, most of the showers and the rain in the south should ease away through the course of saturday night, so again quite a chilly start to sunday, particularly across parts of scotland, where we're likely to see a frosty start — gardeners, take note. not as cold further south, because there will be quite a lot of rain, especially for central

and eastern parts of england, towards the north—west of uk more of a chance of catching some sunshine and a few showers. temperatures generally between eight and 13 degrees, but more rain arrives in the south—east late on sunday, and that's all part of this area of low pressure, which is set to push up from france into southern and eastern parts of the uk, bringing notjust some pretty heavy rain, but also strong winds. so for monday, the potential of localised flooding with that heavy rain, and disruption as possible. do keep tuned to bbc local radio. this is bbc news. i'm vicky young. the headlines at 8pm. a historic meeting between the leaders of north and south korea, as they promise complete denuclearisation‘. kim jong un and moonjay—in vow to end decades of conflict between the two countries. translation: we are one nation. when we met, we realised we cannot be parted.

we are one nation. translation: we declare there will be no war in korea and a new age of peace has begun. also in the next hour. disappointing economic figures. the british economy grew at its slowest rate for more than five years, in the first three months of the year. the two young brothers killed in a hit and run crash in coventry,