the start of that programme has been greeted ra pturously in most quarters, but some people have concerns over the vaccine‘s safety. last week, dr anthony fauci, the director of america's national institute of infectious diseases, appeared to validate those concerns when he said that the uk had "rushed" approval of the vaccine. the following day, though, he apologised and rowed back over those remarks, telling the bbc he had "a great deal of confidence in what the uk does both scientifically and from a regulator standpoint." but for some viewers, coverage of his initial statement had done some damage.

this week, there was more anxiety when two nhs workers had an allergic reaction after being vaccinated. as the bbc reported, they both have a history of serious allergic reactions, carry adrenaline pens round with them, and both felt fine the next day. but the headline to the story on the bbc news website prompted a twitter user called fountain pen to post this... so, how much attention should bbc news give to worries about the safety of covid vaccines and scepticism about the vaccination programme? dominic hampson, a junior doctor, saw this article

a couple of weeks ago on the bbc news website and contacted us by email... well, a report last week from global health correspondent tulip mazumdar set out to examine the problem of disinformation around the vaccine. i spoke to trainee solicitor oscar, who's taking part in vaccine trials at imperial college london, and production designer nina. i would like to be vaccinated because i think it's one of the only ways out of this situation. i have quite mixed feelings. i'm not sure how much i trust the vaccine yet, because it happened so quickly. that report went on to address the challenge of counteracting

misinformation. chris westhead wasn't satisfied, though, and recorded this video for us to explain why. in recent news coverage canvassing views from the public about the take—up of the covid vaccines, i was alarmed at the equal weight given to the opinions of two people interviewed, one in positive agreement to receiving the vaccine and the other person who was not convinced it was safe due to the vaccine trials happening too quickly. following the bbc over—publicising the discredited concern about the nmr vaccine 20 years ago, will viewers continue to hear negative opinions freely offered against the covid vaccines supported by no evidence? i know the bbc aims to present balanced views on serious health issues, but i believe it needs to address how it's apportioning the appropriate weight to contrasting views. well, to discuss all these issues around vaccine coverage, i'm joined by carol rubra, the editor of the health and science unit at bbc news. thank you for coming on newswatch. can we start with the reporting

of dr fauci's comments and the concern around that? he subsequently backtracked very quickly, but was there ever a doubt for bbc news that you needed to report what he'd said? no, there wasn't. i mean, dr fauci is the equivalent in the us of chris whitty, chief medical officer here, and so if dr fauci says something about the pfizer vaccine, then clearly it's newsworthy and it's important that the bbc reports it. what we tried to do was to give people the context around the comments so that people were able to have enough information to make up their own minds. for example, we were able to expand the process that the mhra, the regulating body in the uk, had gone through, the fact that they had had a rolling review of the vaccine, and so we gave people the context around the comments. and then when fauci corrected and apologised for his comments shortly afterwards, we gave that similar prominence so that the audience were able to see that he had changed what he was saying about the vaccine. another very specific news story was the two nhs workers

who had the allergic reaction. were you worried at all that that being headline news might play into some people's fears about the vaccine? it's always a worry, and that means that we have to think very carefully about how we report instances like this. but clearly, there's a huge public interest in the vaccine, and it was very important that the bbc reported these two allergic reactions. and the head of the mhra, june raine, had talked about it in the select committee that morning, so what we were very careful to do was to make clear that several thousand people had had the vaccine the previous day and these were just two people who'd had an allergic reaction. we know that it's common nowadays to make headlines into questions on the news website, but we heard that doctor who complained, the headline that read "covid vaccines — how safe are they really?" you know, doesn't that feed uncertainty? there is a section of the population who are uncertain about the vaccine and have got lots of questions about safety, and what we're trying to achieve in the bbc is to give people that information so that when they have got those questions, they can get

the answers from a source that they trust. and so what we do is we do change our headlines according to what people are searching for online, so that the bbc‘s answers can be easily found. we saw in one of those clips of tulip mazumdar voxpopping members of the public expressing uncertainty. what's your view about the role of that in vaccine coverage? so, there's a difference between people who are hesitant about the vaccine, who want more information and have got questions about the safety, and people who are unconvinced about vaccines, know what they think and have already made up their minds. that's a much smaller group of people. and we've got a real role in giving people some of that information to answer the understandable questions that they've got.

but we need to find ways of doing that that don't add to the noise and don't amplify some of the disinformation. now, we do know that there's been this huge growth in anti—vaxxer conspiracy theories spread online, mainly through social media. how much of an impact are they having on how you think about coverage of the vaccines? we make sure that what we say is based on the evidence, based on what scientists are telling us and based on the data. a really important number to come back to is that one in 1,000 people have already died in the uk since the start of this pandemic after being infected with coronavirus. no vaccine is risk—free, and we need to be honest about that, but we need to help the audience to understand those risks and set them against the dangers of coronavirus. but there is concern from scientists that the misinformation and the fake news which is being shared on social media may put people off from having a vaccine which could potentially save their lives, so we do feel that we've got a really

important role to play in giving people the right information but also in tackling some of that misinformation. and we have a disinformation unit who's doing work, looking at some of the fake claims online. and marianna spring is doing some work on that. and then in addition to that, there's the trusted news initiative, where the bbc is working with media organisations all over the world to try and tackle some of the misinformation and disinformation, and that's particularly important on vaccines. in the end, carol, we're in this interesting situation where there is this national vaccination programme being rolled out by the government through the nhs. is it the bbc‘sjob to promote it? it's not the bbc‘s job to promote it. it's the bbc‘s job to give people accurate and impartial information about the vaccines and about the science around those vaccines, so that people can make up their own minds based on the facts.

carol rubra, thank you so much. finally, you may have noticed we have our fourth different studio backdrop in the past four weeks. a month ago, we featured concerns that bbc staff who could be seen behind some interviewees, filmed here at broadcasting house, were not socially distancing or wearing masks. it turned out that those pictures were not live pictures of the newsroom but pictures recorded before coronavirus had been heard of, and then run in the back of the shot. so we replaced our own pre—recorded newsroom background with these pictures, but some viewers objected that they were distracted by the lifts going up and down. last week, we tried out this less active backing, but now we can bring you these newly—shot images of the newsroom, which reflect the current way of working here. probably enough about studio backgrounds for a while, but before we leave the subject, here's a suggestion

from peter furneaux. 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 previous interviews on our website, 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. friday was another unsettled day, a day that brought many of us outbreaks of rain. the rain was most persistent in aberdeenshire but, equally, there were a few brighter moments — for example, here in cornwall to allow these rather stunning rainbows to develop. we have at the moment a very slow—moving area of low pressure crossing the country. further patches of rain moving generally slowly eastwards and with the winds very light, again, we're starting to see some dense patches of fog form particularly across eastern england. visibility is already down to 100 metres in places with the foggy weather really from essex northwards into the east midlands, perhaps east anglia, lincolnshire, and yorkshire. that's where the poorest visibility is likely to be. whereas further west, the skies tending to clear. this is where we'll see some of the lowest temperatures early on saturday morning. and saturday itself, it's a day where pressure is going to be rising across the whole of the uk. what that will do is it will squish this area of low pressure. so, in the next 2a hours, it won't exist at all, it willjust be gone.

further west we get this ridge building in and that will have quite a big impact on the weather. it means across these western and southern areas, it's an improving weather picture with sunny spells developing but with that slow—moving area of low pressure close by, it stays pretty cloudy and there probably will still be some patches of rain well on into the afternoon across the north—east. for many of us, though, saturday morning will be a rather grey start to the day. extensive cloud, some patches of light rain and drizzle. very slowly pushing eastwards because there's barely any wind to move those features along. sunshine to start the day in northern ireland, that will tend to spread to south—west scotland, western areas of england, wales, the midlands, and much of the south of england as well. now, the second half of the weekend is dominated by this next area of low pressure. there are more isobars on the chart. so, you'll notice the weather certainly turning a lot windier and also a lot wetter as well. yes, outbreaks rain spreading

up from the south—west, heavy as well, as it dives in across england and wales, pushes northwards across northern ireland into scotland through the afternoon. so, although it will be a dry start across northern and eastern areas, rain will arrive later in the day and it will be blowy as well. gales developing around our southern and western coasts and hills. the winds, though, coming from a south—westerly direction blowing in mild air. so, temperatures up to 13 in the south—west.

bye— bye.

this is bbc news: i'm james reynolds. our top stories: the us regulator authorises the pfizer—biontech coronavirus vaccine for emergency use — donald trump says the first person will be vaccinated in the next 2a hours. president trump's attempts to overturn the election result have potentially been dealt a final legal blow — the us supreme court rejects a lawsuit aimed at throwing out the votes in four states. borisjohnson and the eu say they're unlikely to strike a post—brexit trade deal by sunday — with differences over how a new relationship might look. plus: # make my wish come true, # all i want for christmas is you... a song released 26 years ago — and a christmas favourite — finally tops the charts