‘one is a senior government minister one is the second national lockdown in england could last more than a month amid fears that the rise in coronavirus cases could overwhelm hospitals. from thursday, nonessential shops, restaurants, pubs, gyms and hair and beauty salons will be forced to close. the uk opposition leader has welcomed the new measures but is calling on the government to use the time to ramp up test and trace. with just two days to go until election day, the us presidential candidates are making a final weekend —— around key swing states. the major search and rescue effort is into its third day in the turkish coastal town of izmir, following a major earthquake that hit the aegean on friday, killing at least 60 people. and typhoon goni has made landfall in the philippines, with sustained winds of more than 114 mph. the most powerful storm this year has caused the evacuation of over 200,000

people. in around ten minutes must make time, we will have sportsday for you, but first here on bbc news, the media show‘s amol rajan talks to the editor of the daily mirror, alison phillips. hello. my guest today is one of the most influentialjournalists in the country. alison phillips has been the editor of the daily mirror since 2018. the last time we spoke, you were just the editor of the mirror. since then your remit has broadened, for which congratulations. you're now editor in chief of the daily mirror, the sunday mirror and the sunday people. just tell us what it like running a seven day operation at the moment? it is really exciting, it has been an incredible year for news and i think what has been most interesting is seeing how much readers have come back to news. i think there is always that slight concern in

journalism that one day you are going to run out of stories or one day there will be nothing that people want to read and there has been so much doom and gloom, i think, across the industry over recent years about people turning away from news for a whole host of reasons, but this year with the pandemic we have seen our numbers could digitally the numbers are the highest numbers we had ever seen and in print as well, obviously we took a bit of a hit at the beginning of lockdown, but they had virtually all come back, so there is a real hunger for news and that brings with it this sort of real sense of privilege that you are trying to give that news to them in a way that is useful, accessible, helpful and actually makes people feel a bit better about what is a very, very worrying situation. and how much are you now sharing across the print titles? so in terms of the stories between the mirror, the daily express, for instance, all of which is part of reach plc, the umbrella company. how much of that, how much of those stories, how much of that

journalism is being shared across papers? so if it is a sort of court case in rotherham this morning or it's... an inquest that is going on in worthing or something, something like that, we would share that copy because in a way why wouldn't you? you are not going to have a different take on it from different titles. anything that is political, anything that is campaigning or anything of this brand is completely separate and i will fight with the editors of the express and the star on those whenever i feel and they will do the same with me if they feel that anybody is trying to move in on your territory. you have to because the worst thing for any of our brands, for the mirror, the express or the star, and have always said this, as they become one big, grey mush and it is all a bit the same. we have to be distinctive. that restructuring of the business with the mirror and the express coming together as part of reach plc, but of course came before the pandemic. what can you tell us about the impact of the pandemic on your sales

and on your advertising revenue? so when we first went into the national lockdown, we saw we lost about 20% of our sale. so... in print. so obviously already print is challenged, as we all know, so that is... that was very worrying at that point, and also we had no idea how long the complete lockdown was going to last four. was going to last for. at that point, everyone‘s habits were turned upside down. long before people started to go to the shops more normally again, we had taken back most of those and then we are now about... 0n the daily, we are about 4% off where we would be, essentially, and in the sunday and on the sundays essentially we are flat, we haven't lost anything, so along with a lot of the other newspaper titles we introduced a free deliver my newspaper at home strategy, which had enormous take—up and interestingly because it spanned across the seven days more people actually started coming to us on the sunday titles and the saturday titles than were before, so that was really positive.

we focused a lot on ensuring that there was just plenty to read every day in print because people we re stuck indoors. what did you announce as the cost saving targets and the use of the furlough scheme? so we did use the furlough scheme and we had, you know, significant numbers of people, particularly a lot of them were from the advertising department. more really than from editorial and that kind of got us through that very bad period at the beginning and then injuly time went into a restructure, at which point we lostjobs across both commercial and editorial, which was really, really tough and it has been a really difficult summer. how do you approach that? i mean, i have been there, it is incredibly hard, isn't it? it was horrendous, it is horrendous and in the days leading up to it you know it is coming and you know... you know the impact it is going to have on people's lives and these are people that you work closely with and you know they have gotfamilies and...

are they your friends? yeah, and also you know that the job market is really tough at the moment as well and so there was a big all staff meeting at the beginning of the day and then people were spoken to individually. but it is really hard and i think you just have to try and be as compassionate as you possibly can, as honest as you can... and as clear as you can? and as clear as you can, just accept that people are going to be angry and hurt because when people give their lives to an organisation or a company, then it is hurtful. so in practical terms, how are you getting the papers made each day at the moment? are your journalists all working remotely? we are still all working from home, which is a challenge. i think last week when the... so we have got lots of reporters in manchester and yorkshire now, so we have got various people in tier 3 and then a lot of people in

london who tier 2 and there was a point last week where i really felt people's heads went down and it is just going to be a really long, hard slog through the winter. there was a certain novelty to all at the beginning, and when we got to the point where we are just amazed that we could actually create a website and create newspapers from home, then we sort of got into the swing of itand... but i think that you do lose the creativity and the fun, and newsrooms are funny places and they are a laugh and the best ideas come because you are having a laugh about something and that is so much harder on a zoom call. but also, your authority as an editor partly comes from your physical presence and this isn't just a romantic idea about how editors have been through the ages. seeing alison phillips in the newsroom or having her over your shoulder saying, we need to change page one or the layout is not quite right, that is a really integral part of what you do. it must be hard doing that digitally... i haven't really thought about my physical presence.

i'm not really sure that's... but certainly i think the... i'm not saying people quake when you are there. i'm not guaranteeing they don't! so back in the summer when we did the dominic cummings story, which is one of those great stories that you live to do, and it was late on a friday night that we finally got enough to get it over the line to get it up online at seven and then in print in next morning, and so there was me in my spare room and then there was our head of news, who was sat by his son's bunk beds working and then our night editor there in his flat and i was thinking, this is not how it looks in the movies, is it? where you try to break a really big, important story. i would love to get your side of that whole story, this whole business of dominic cummings and the trip to barnard castle back in may. this is a big exclusive you shared with the guardian. we spoke to pippa crerar, your political editor, about it. just tell us again why we ended up working together with the guardian on something like that. as you say, people are very protective of their ideas.

yes, we are, but pippa crerar had had a call on that story within a couple of hours of the siting of dominic cummings. was this the alleged... yes, so we had had a call early on and i think as the guardian had as well, they had gone to number ten and were being completely stonewalled and as you know, you need to be absolutely certain that when you go... and the idea that we weren't getting any response from them just made it really difficult, but we kept on working on it, we had... obviously we have gotjeremy armstrong, our reporter in the north—east was on it for several weeks and we had people get different things, trying to patch it all together and then pippa crerar heard that the guardian they were also looking at different sources as well and then by bringing it together and then pippa crerar heard that... and i spoke to katharine viner and we knew that together we had enough to get it over the line. did you have any doubts? it is always nerve—racking doing a story like that. 0ur north—east reporter has been

on the mirror for 25 years and he had been there, he had talked to the people, you have got to trust your reporters, you have to employ reporters who can be trusted in these situations and then when they tell you something you believe it. did you deliberately hold back some details to give you a really strong splash over several days? in other words, did you drip feed the story? no, not intentionally, in that... in that there were some bits of the story that we needed more work on. and just to be clear, did you have any sort of agreement, informal or whatever it might be, with the guardian about what they would do and what you would do? oh, yeah, completely. so we had to make sure we were going with the same lines on the same day at exactly the same time. so how do you find dealing with this particular number ten operation? i think he is just really... it is just quite disappointed, ithink, really, which sounds... yes, we have got different, we have come from yes, we have got different, we come from a different political standpoint, but ijust think it is very

disappointing that sometimes the politics can't be taken out of things in terms of what is the best thing for the people of this country getting the news and the information that they need to know. i mean, there was the incident during the election where the mirror was kicked off the conservative bus, the campaign bus, which just seemed slightly petty. what was that for? just because they didn't feel that we were of value, of use, and i think... i mean, obviously we are not going to be of value to a conservative campaign. we haven't been since 1945, so that was never going to happen, but there is still... ..an important point for democracy that people everywhere who read the news need to know what the different parties are saying. is the mirror a socialist publication? we are... ..a publication about fairness. does that make you a socialist publication?

we are... i mean, i don't think there is anything wrong in saying that you are a socialist publication. but i think that's not how we would initially define ourselves. that is not the most important thing about us. we were speaking on the show last week about the controversy in the us around how facebook and twitter basically censored in an old—fashioned sense a story that the new york post ran about hunter biden, joe biden‘s son, and they cited their policies on disinformation. does it scare you, the power of these platforms now have when it comes to distributing the news? yes. i mean, we are at a really critical point, i think, in this in terms of the power of these very, very few organisations. about distributing the news, but also the news that they don't distribute. also about the fake news that we know that propagates. also around the polarisation of views and of all the anger and the damage that causes.

and just generally of the stranglehold that they've got around the whole media industry. isn't the truth that these companies have just engineered supremely effective tools, which people today love? but during the industrial revolution they also designed incredibly effective factories which killed young children that were sent to work in them, polluted the skies and caused all sorts of social ills. so the fact that you've created something doesn't necessarily mean that you should be able to use it as you might wish. and that's why we've got to have some kind of global consensus on how we're going to deal with these people. alison phillips, editor in chief of the daily mirror, sunday mirror and sunday people and all the digital products associated with them, thank you very much indeed for taking the time to talk to us. thank you. and you can catch the full interview on bbc sounds.

hello and welcome to sportsday — i'm gavin ramjaun. mercedes clinch a seventh constructors title — as lewis hamilton edges closer to record—equalling 7th world title in italy. glory for manchester city — the win the women's fa cup final, after an extra time victory everton. aubameyang seals a crucial win for arsenal — ending a 14—year wait for a league win at old trafford against man united. and let the celebrations commence — six nations champions england are presented with their title — their first since 2017. hello, and welcome to sportsday.

he's become acccustomed to history making. and lewis hamilton has a record—equalling 7th world title in his sights, following victory at the emilia romagna grand prix at imola. the number seven significant for his team, mercedes. hamilton's win securing them a 7th consecutive constructors title. a landmark in the sport — as adam wild reports. this was formula 1's return to italy's famed imola circuit, a fitting place for lewis hamilton, who at every corner this season makes a little more history. as he races towards another world title, the team surrounding him are setting records of their own. it's lights out and away we go! mercedes entirely dominant, although it was their other driver, valtteri bottas, who started out front. but the strength of the team is in the strategy as well as the speed, and when others made their stops, hamilton just kept going, leaving all the other drivers and the drama behind. max verstappen crashing out started a chaotic few moments. britain's george russell inexplicably losing control