it'll be a few more weeks before the votes cast in the us presidental election are certified and the winner officially declared. but there's no doubt about who that will be in most people's minds, as ben wright described from washington on monday morning. donald trump continues to say nothing publicly aboutjoe biden having won this election. he has not given him his approval, he hasn't conceded, he's complained on twitter a lot, of course, about what he thinks is a rigged election — which he has no evidence for at all. on thursday, federal and state us election officials rejected president trump's claims of fraud, but the phrase used in that clip — that there was no evidence at all for those claims — and similar statements

elsewhere on bbc news, was queried by graham lascelles. .. there were also objections from the other side of that argument, with someone using the twitter name wattsupdoc? wondering... in recent months, the bbc has found itself making the headlines for how it's used racially offensive language in some of its reports. we're going to look at that issue now, with care, but we will be quoting some words. two cases cropped up this week. on monday, a member

of the house of lords, lord kilclooney, tweeted this question: "what happens if biden moves on and the indian becomes president. who then becomes vice president?" that phrase, "the indian", to describe kamala harris caused some outrage, and the peer later deleted the tweet, claiming it was a mistake, but he did not apologise. the bbc news website described it as an "offensive" and a "racist" tweet, but put both of those words in quotation marks, which elicited this response from andrew pickering... two days later, the chairman of the football associaton, greg clarke, was answering questions before a parliamentary select committee about diversity. here's dan roan, reporting for bbc news bulletins. if you go to the it department at the fa, there's a lot more south asians than there are afro—caribbeans. they have different career interests.

but that wasn't all he said. clarke then referring to black players using an offensive and outdated term. high—profile coloured footballers and the abuse they take... greg clarke resigned from his post later the same day. he said he was "deeply saddened" for the offence he had caused by using that term. and that evening, one viewer, david buttar, e—mailed us to say... well, to discuss all this, let's speak to kamal ahmed, the editorial director for bbc news. kamal, let's start with the two cases this week. the first one, with the peer referring to the us vice president—elect as "the indian".

now, the bbc described that as a "racist" tweet, with the word racist in quotation marks. why? because they were quotes from parliamentarians and others about lord kilclooney‘s comments, and so we put them in quotes to show that they were attributed to other people who were criticising him. and also, in no way would they suggest that the bbc was passing any form ofjudgement on what was said, so we simply used the quotes to show that there is attribution and that those were criticisms of what lord kilclooney said. so, critics of him were describing the tweet as racist, and that's why the word racist was in quotes? yes. then there's greg clarke, the chairman of the fa, who resigned after remarks bbc news reported there. they focused on this particular word he used to describe black players. we're not going to repeat it — we heard him saying it there. bbc described it as offensive language. why use that word to describe it? many people consider the use of the word as offensive.

and, clearly, he resigned after saying that the word was offensive and there was widespread agreement that the word that he used was offensive, so we were able to use that as a description of the word. and given that he resigned, he clearly realised that he had used the word inappropriately. kamal, you and i are old enough to remember a time when that particular word was used quite widely in mainstream british society. it's offensive now. and one wonders, should the bbc be repeating it at all? we obviously were allowed to use it once there, when he said it himself. so, we have quite in—depth discussions about these issues before we broadcast. and you have to get the correct balance between audience understanding of the story and also not causing gratuitous offence to audiences, and so it would have been difficult, we believe, for the audience to understand the story if we simply didn't

use the clip of greg clarke saying the word at all. but also, you don't want to compound any offence by repeating the word over and over again in scripts or in cues before any packages are seen, so we agreed, amongst us and after a wide discussion amongst editorial heads here, that we would use the clip once — to give context to the audience, what the word was — but we wouldn't overuse it and risk doubling the offence that could be caused. i suspect there are people watching right now who would be saying they don't find that word offensive. what would you say to them? well, the judgement we take is whether it is offensive to audiences. and there would be many audiences who would find that word offensive, and we have to take care if that is the case. it doesn't mean that everyone needs to find it offensive before we make those judgements. and also, as i say, greg clarke resigned, so clearly there was an agreement that what he had said was inappropriate

and offensive. this all comes after the summer in which the bbc broadcast the n—word in a news report about a racist attack, defended it for quite some time, but then apologised after a huge public outcry — which included a radioi dj resigning over the matter. did the bbc give in to public pressure or did it get it wrong? no, we agreed that we hadn't made the right decision at the outset, we apologised for that. there were in—depth discussions about the coverage of that story. it was a very, very important story about an horrific, racially aggravated assault, and it was reported in the way it was reported. we realised that that was a misstep and we apologised for it. you implied there'd been discussions, so has there been a rewriting to some extent of bbc editorial policy since then over how news deals with racially

offensive language? yes — so, after that, as you suggest, we had discussions about how we can ensure that our guidelines were robust on these issues, and now we do have new guidelines in place on the most racially offensive slurs, and they are now automatically referred to the director of the division — in our case, the director of news, fran unsworth — and that means that we have robust systems in place to ensure that we don't misstep in that way again. there can be disputes around what was the intent of the use of certain words, and that's perfectly reasonable, and it's important that the bbc doesn't passjudgement on the motivations of people using words but making it clear that words are offensive. kamal ahmed, thank you. one of the challenges

of being interviewed remotely from home, as so many people are during this pandemic, is what to show in the background of the camera shot. many interviewees go for a book shelf, perhaps to show how well—read they are. but there can be another benefit, too, as thejournalist susie boniface showed when appearing on the papers last friday night. the author of that book to her right, fleet street fox, was susie boniface herself, prompting this response from melanie milne... three days later, the bbc‘s global trade correspondent dharshini david was also speaking to the news channel. look out for the six copies of the book the almighty dollar on the shelf above her. you'll have guessed the author. rob croft thought it was a...

and michael flannigan posted this... thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions about what you see or hear on bbc news, on tv, radio, online and social media, e—mail newswatch@bbc. co. uk, or you can find us on twitter @newswatchbbc. you can call us on 0370 010 6676, and do have a look at our website for previous interviews — bbc.co.uk/newswatch. that's all from us. we'll be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again next week. goodbye. hello there. we ended the working

week on a fine note. we saw quite a bit of sunshine on friday, but it's not going to be the case this weekend — it's going to be a lot more unsettled, thanks to low pressure. it'll be windy for most of us, and there will be spells of heavy rain at times — all courtesy of this new area of low pressure, which is going to stick around both saturday and sunday, and it's going to bring strongest winds to the southern and western areas, through the day on saturday, and there'll be bands of rain spreading from south to north across the country. some of the rain could be quite heavy in places. maybe a rumble of thunder for england and wales, and very windy around the south—west. around irish sea coasts, up to 55 mph. probably the best of any drier interludes will be across central northern scotland, and north—east england for a time. but a milder day to come, 12 to maybe 15 or 16 degrees across the south—east. but that rain gets into northern and north—east areas through saturday evening. it's followed by further blustery showers or longer spells of rain moving up from the south. though again, there will be some dryer interludes, but it's going to be a blustery night — gusts of wind around 20—30 mph widely, more than that around the south—west — up to 50 mph there.

temperature—wise, single—figure values across the north, but again, i think, a fairly mild night to come for england and wales. now, as we head on into sunday, here's our area of low pressure to the north—west of the uk, spinning across the country, bringing further bands of pretty heavy rain and strong winds. but it looks like the strongest of the winds on sunday will be across more southern parts of britain. gales running through the channel, 50—65 mph here. and there will be bands of rain spreading from west to east. again with some dry, maybe brighter interludes in between. it's not going to be a complete wash—out. a little bit cooler on sunday, temperatures of 11—14 celsius. now our weekend — the low pressure begins to slip away as we head on into next week. a brief ridge of high pressure for a while, before this next feature starts to run in, to bring stronger winds and some rain through the day. so we could start dry and bright across much of the country, away from northern scotland, on monday. but then it goes downhill through the day with more rain piling into southern scotland, northern ireland,

england, and wales. those temperatures will range from around 9—12 degrees. now, as we move through the week, it stays changeable. further spells of rain, followed by sunshine and showers. then there's a chance that all areas will be turning much colder by the end of the week.

this is bbc news. i'm james reynolds. our top stories: president trump says he won't put the us into lockdown, despite a surge in covid—i9 — as he comes close to admitting he's leaving the white house next year. the uk prime minister's most senior adviser — dominic cummings — quits hisjob after days of turmoil within the government. at least 42 people have died and 20 others are missing after typhoon vamco made landfall in the philippines — and is now heading for vietnam. and we'll be looking at how families plan to light up their diwali celebrations during lockdown. welcome to our viewers on pbs in america and around the globe