will bring you that at apm, anything he will bring you that at lipm, anything he has to say. we will bring it to you on bbc news. to reiterate, you insecurity counselling emergency meeting taking place this afternoon and we will bring you more from that later here on bbc news. now on bbc news — social media, anti—social media, breaking news, faking news. this is the programme about a revolution in media, with mobeen azhar. hello. the news cycle, the news agenda, why is the news told in the way it is? i'm thinking about the way the media covered the recent election. new mayors, new councillors, new mps, but all i could think about was the giant, inflatable borisjohnson. you must�*ve seen it. i'm talking about this 30 foot blow—up version of the prime minister that appeared outside the hartlepool count at 4am

and then magically reappeared at the marina when he came to meet the winning candidate in front of a bunch of westminster journalists. that became the narrative. a gigantic triumph for borisjohnson and then the next day the westminister journalists were gone and it moved on to the next thing. today i am asking why does the media fall for these gimmicks? why is the news cycle so fast and so fickle? i've got a brilliant bunch of guests to help me answer these questions. catriona stewart is chief reporter at the glasgow times. stephen bush is political editor at the new statesman. katy balls is deputy political editor at the spectator and michael friedenberg is also here, he's president of reuters, the global news agency. now michael, we are going to talk

to you a little bit later on in the show. but first of all i just want to hear a little bit about this story of reuters, a little bit of history. once upon a time if i'm not mistaken there was a mr reuters, wasn't there? that's right. absolutely, the baron. reuters is a 170—year—old media company. we've gone from producing news via carrier pigeon to today's future of producing news in artificial intelligence. we've gone the entire gamut from carrier pigeons to ai. 170 year history, very proud of 2500 journalists in over 200 locations. of course. michael, people think of reuters and they think of it in a kind of traditional telegram messages kinda way. they think about breaking news. but you do a lot more than that as well don't you? we do. i think we take great pride in producing objective unbiased news that brings together global and local coverage. and it's really at the intersection of general news, public service journalism as well as market moving news. you look at stories just recently,

the passing of prince philip. what's taking place right now at the gaza strip, the european super soccer league debacle, these are all stories that have global and local interest and cut across all general news and market moving news capabilities. michael, we will chat to you a little bit more in a second. i want to start by talking about the idea of the news cycle. it's something that gets spoken about a lot. we usually think about it in terms of how long a story holds our attention before we want to move onto something else. stephen, you are from the new statesman. how would you define the news cycle in terms of the british media today? really good question. i guess for me i think of the news cycle primarily in terms of our daily morning e—mail, which is a daily guide on what the biggest story in british politics is with small items from around the world which are kind of look, here's the stuff you need to know

about the civil war in ethiopia, about the potential break—out of war on the gaza strip. that type of thing. i tend to think of the news cycle as a kind of monday through friday thing. monday it emerges the prime minister has an unpaid debt against him. tuesday the government responds to it, wednesday the labour party does something to try and extend the news story, thursday the eye of the story is moving to a point of crisis for the prime minister or has nowhere new to go. friday something will happen in the sundays and acts as a fire break for the political news. that tends to be how i think about it. that is a very parochial definition based around my specific thing. that's probably a good way of thinking about the news cycle as really the workflow

cycle for story. its beginning, its middle, its end and the publication cycle of whatever your news product is. of course. katy, you also work for a weekly publication. you work for the spectator. do you think of the news cycle in a similar way then? yes and i think in terms of the political cycle, i because i'm covering politics for the spectator we have i the website and that will dominate. we have a weekly issue and work on what's still relevant _ on a saturday in terms - of the bigger political picture. but i think on a daily level, - we are now in a habit of seeing the stories at the beginning - of the day and how it transforms. i think there are loads of people who are political geeks - or have theirjob as it and they'll be following it minute _ by minute, hour by hour. l but i think the bulk of our readers i are people who want to perhaps know what is happening in the morning and know what's happening - in the evening. it's yourjob to cut _ through the bluster and the noise | in that space of time to work out| what we actually learned that day and what actually changed. of course there's a lot about an appetite. stephen, i want to know from you, how easy do you think it is to sway the news agenda?

there is an argument that journalists are just very fickle and have very short attention spans. how easy or difficult do you think it is to change the news agenda? i think one of the things that is interesting about politics is the advantage of the government party. whether are you the english conservative party, the welsh labour party or the scotish national party, the governing party can change the news agenda. it gets to get to do stuff, it passes legislation, changes people's lives. i think part of the art of being a good journalist is being distracted. it's being interested in things. it's being a bit like the dog going, "squirrel." but the advantage of the governing party has, it can produce squirrels on demand. the problem that the opposition parties have, and this is the interesting thing in political combat, is how they deal with it. the governing party often wants the spotlight to go away

and can't make it do so. the opposition often desperately wants the spotlight and it struggles to drag attention to it. and so that i think is the essence of it. we are often easily distracted. i think that is something that has benefits as well as drawbacks. i mention this because i referenced earlier the blow—up borisjohnson doll, which was huge and made a huge impact. it has all the hallmarks of a pr move. katy, i want to know from you is there anything to suggest that borisjohnson�*s team knew about this in advance? everything we are hearing is that they didn't. it is not a conservative piece of branding. i think the prime minister quickly turned it to his advantage. the result meant it became almost a metaphor for something quite helpful to the tory party. because of the tory gains in seats like hartlepool and the by—election and we heard the prime minister offered to buy it for his personal collection. it does feel as though

it was fairly coincidental. i think it's an interesting one because we are saying oh, we were all focused on that and was it an important thing? i think what it did was it almost summed up in a moment with lots of ministers, tory mps, looking at the results and saying another ten years of tory rule. i think that's very much getting ahead of themselves. but that image of a big, huge inflatable borisjohnson i think it shows you whether it's hot air orjust the domination of the tory party in certain parts of england now, it did lend to hammering the image home. stephen, if i can ask you, i know you actually used the image in your early election write—up. there was obviously a taste for that image. do you think itjust spread like wildfire because it was a great image or do you think there's actually an issue here with journalists and the press having a kind of groupthink? no, i think to be honest it was a good image. one of the things we always struggle with injournalism is broadly

most of them look alike. that is actually one of boris johnson's big political assets. he doesn't look as much like the default politician as much of the rest of them do. most of them look alike. it's hard to illustrate political stories. in the case i wrote, i wanted to write about the fact that it was maybe over sentimentalising the it was losing and had a slightly naive approach. it was slightly out of the usual narrative, that huge inflatable. the thing is let's imagine the conservatives had lost, i suspect that huge inflatable would also become the image of the by—election. albeit in a way of the conservative party would not apply. i think the interesting question is, was the focus of these elections far too much on england in an off—year election in the height of the biggest public policy success any government has ever known basically since the war? and not on the future of the united kingdom. i think that is a more difficult

question for the media to answer. do you think there has been in terms of the reporting too much of a narrow focus in this election? well, i do think that for us - in bristol our focus has been away from the big national story, - which was labour failing to make progress and being plunged into a bit of a crisis - over the weekend. and the spectacular— conservative win in hartlepool. we had a four—day period from the election going l through with the results of four | separate local elections spreadj out over three days. we had a real marathon telling the story of the results. - and the first result was _ the conservatives winning the police and crime commissioner election.

and of course nationally - we were looking at what was happening in hartlepool. so we were beginning to wonder what that really meant - for labour in bristol. but actually drilling - into the figures, the story in bristol was different _ to the story that was being talked about nationally and bristol- was very much about, what will happen to labour? and i think when dan norris actuallyj won a regional mayor election and it it went from conservative to labour we knew that labour— was sound in bristol. albeit under quite a big challenge from the green party— in bristol city council. a very different local picture to the national story. - i think all the talk— about keir starmer's reshuffle and that kind of thing probably was quite lost on our audience j which was very concerned about the local issues. i i just want to stick with the issue

of gimmicks and photo opportunities. you mentioned dan norris who won the metropolitan mayor seat. he had a kind of winner's picture where he posed with his pet dog. i think the dog was called angel. it is a very photogenic dog, it has to be said for some is that the kind of stuff that readers and people visiting the website get behind? does it get eyeballs on it? yeah. no question. we are able to collect some data on that, on sort - of what people want to see. but yes, clearly that l is very eye—catching. and for the regional mayor- in bristol, who is in many ways a more significant figure and a more powerful figure, certainly access - to a lot more money, - he had suffered from a bit of an identity problem.

so the previous regional mayor, borisjohnson famously- wasn't able to name him. even though he was a conservative. that was tim bowles. there was a bit of a boris moment when he came l to visit gloucestershire . in the election campaign. but labour's dan norris seems to be i taking a different tact and is a lot i more prominent and in fact - we are hearing a lot more from him straight from the outset. so yeah, clearly that photo again, we don't know- how contrived that was. we know that his dog does feature quite heavily. - his dog has been on many calls... sure. it seems to have worked anyway. whether it's pictures of dogs or inflatables or putting out statements, we are of course talking about tools that politicians have to set the news agenda. of course one of the big stores that

broke at the weekend was about keir starmer wielding an axe and this kind of proposed reshuffle, i'm talking about angela rayner in particular here. stephen, do you think that was an attempt to try to control the news cycle? yeah. in a slightly self—defeating way, it worked. he literally wielded the axe exactly as dan norris was standing up and going, i'd like to thank keir starmer, and keir starmer, his response was, i would like to thank dan norris by making sure that no one outside of bristol or indeed outside of the bristol metro area ever writes about his quite impressive result. but that was an attempt to control the news agenda. look, we're using these terrible results as catalyst for change and wielding the axe, i'm a strong leader, hear me roar. of course the problem was he succeeded in moving the story on from the result. by demonstrating he is not a strong leader any more but a leader who is struggling to manage the interest groups of his party.

catriona, tell us about strategies for the snp. what was their broad strategy during the election to control the news cycle and do you think they were successful? i think nicola sturgeon is such a savvy media operator. i think she actually benefited having stand against anas sarwar in her glasgow constituency because this was the first time that we had two party leaders standing in one place. and she was very personable throughout the election. obviously there were lots of coronavirus constraints but she did a really good job of being out and about in the community. as i say, up against anas sarwar. initially when alex salmond launched his party, there were concerns that the election was just going to become an ongoing row between nicola sturgeon and alex salmond, but that didn't actually emerge. so she benefited also from the fact

that alex salmond didn't really manage to gain a lot of coverage for his campaign. specifically, if we can talk about the idea that there was a lot of talk about the snp getting a majority. the snp themselves downplayed that really. was that strategic and what was the benefit of that? well, it's not strategic. i think this is one of the main frustrations of the coverage. particularly in scotland watching coverage. this framing that the snp failed to win a majority and it's just become repetitive, this mantra, someone will say that, someone else sticks up to correct it. the scottish parliamentary system is set up to having a majority government so when the majority previously under alex salmond,

that was a freak event. it was not supposed to happen. and so when nicola sturgeon was saying she wasn't expecting to win the majority, she wasn't, because parliament was not designed that way. so that's the political news cycle. i want to zoom out for a second and talk about the forces that shape what we call news today. michael friedenberg, president of reuters, let me bring you in here. this is your specialist area. your company is in the business of feeding the news cycle, essentially. you're supplying news outlets on a daily, minute by minute, hour by hour basis. give us a sense of the scale of that operation. sure. we have 2,500 journalists across the globe in 200 locations. and we are partnering with close to 3,000 media companies and broadcasters to what you say providing them news that they then distribute out to the rest of their outlets.

and on our side we reach 81 million people a day on platform, off platform be it through various channels. so we are reaching billions of people each and every day. somehow some way they are touching reuters news in some manner. how do you make money? what is the business model of reuters? is it as simple as people just paying for the content that they use? we have three customer bases, first we serve for fitted of which was recently acquired by el sig~ _ they serve in exclusive market moving news. they compete against others in the market moving data, financial world. 0n the b2b side we supply close to 3,000 media companies and broadcasters with news from across the globe. and then on the b2c side we have our reuters.com events as well as content marketing arm. they are primarily the three areas of business that we do.

of course, we talk a lot and have been talking a lot about the recent election. one of the defining images or video clips from the election was when i'm sure you remember this, when keir starmer i think went into a pub and was effectively got into a bit of a ding dong. this story broke primarily not on news websites but broke on twitter. michael, you'll be aware, increasingly we are seeing everyone has a smartphone, everyone has a camera. so the model of people generating their own content and therefore breaking their own news, is that a threat to the reuters model? no, i don't see it as a threat. i think it's an amplification. i think it's something that is of great use for reuters. as well as i think it's really important that you think about the supply chain of content, be it either creation, verification and distribution. so unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation on social media platforms. and reuters does a lot of work and making sure

that we are verifying the news that is going across those platforms to make sure that everybody feels comfortable that they are able to make the smartest decisions possible with accurate information. to me i think this is the ecosystem that we are living in right now. we have to become used to it and work around it. and also make sure that it is safe and understanding for everybody tojust be able to make the best decisions possible. either personally or professionally. is immediacy still one of the usps of reuters? traditionally people saw it as a newswire service and it was where many outlets would go to for breaking news. is that still part of the sell? without a doubt. accuracy and speed are absolutely essential. so we want to make sure that we are accurate but if no one is getting that in the time that they need in order to make the decisions possible then that is not doing the public

the service that we feel we need to be providing. accuracy and speed are paramount. you mentioned those two things in parallel, accuracy and speed. is there sometimes a pressure to get things out so quickly that accuracy is under pressure and is threatened in some ways and how do you strike the balance? unfortunately, there is. you see news outlets battling that each and every day. there was an episode just last week in which there was in an inaccurate report within the states that proliferated because unfortunately due to that race of getting the news out to the market as quickly as possible. at reuters we want to make sure that we are accurate first but then absolutely speed is essential. we will pride ourselves on making sure that we are accurate and fast. but we want to make sure that we are accurate. i just want to know as well, do you think there's going to be a shift in the reuters audience? do you think you could end up

in a place in a few years where you are selling news directly to members of the public rather than through broadcasters and news agencies? do you want that to happen? yes, we are. in fact we made the announcement that were going to be launching subscriptions on reuters.com in the very near future. so i think the ways that you get reuters news via either other media companies are broadcasters or directly to reuters.com. or we have 0tt stations in partnership with other companies like samsung. just various ways in which you can engage with reuters content. and i think that the most important thing is making sure that we're getting unbiased content out into the marketplace so people can make the best decisions possible. there is one more story that i want to squeeze in. it's really about the downing street briefing room, which we are sure you are all aware of. as you probably remember

it was the plan of a government spokesperson address the media directly giving politicians another way to control the news agenda, really. there was the shiny studio, all kitted out ready to go at the cost of 2.6 million quid. it got cancelled at the last minute during the election. katy, what happened, what went wrong here? i think there was a combination of factors but ultimately the televised press briefings were the brainchild of lee cain, the former director of communications, and he left because over a row over the appointment of allegra stratton, you had a situation where the person who had come up with the idea was no longer in the building. and i think from then on there was lots of speculation whether it would happen. i think there was an increased view that for all the controlling of the narrative and setting the front for the news agenda it carried a high level of risk.

i think stories on tory sleaze, stories on the number 10 flat refurbishment acts as a reminder of how a televised press briefing may help the government set the tone but it could also go in many damaging directions. very briefly, thomas, do you think people in bristol would've cared? would they have like to see the news come via a briefing room? they are interested in the briefings. - and they are very interested to know when we tell them that there's - going to be a briefing. i'm not sure how important- it is to them where that comes from. i think there are bigger issues for our local audience. - stephen, what is your take on the briefing room, is a shame that it's not happening? yeah, it's definitely a shame for us in the media. it's an opportunity to pin the government down on record. when there's video footage, right? that sadly of course is the reason why i think it was a pretty silly idea from a government perspective and i think why it ended up dead in the water. it would've been brilliant for accountability. unfortunately part of the game

of this is they don't like accountability and we have to continually drag it out of them, and that is true regardless of the colour of the rosette in which ever bit of government it is. do you think the briefing room would've made any impact on scottish politics? i think the cost of it is another faux pas for borisjohnson. he can't seem to do anything right to win the scottish public. that's less than 30 seconds but i appreciate your brevity. thank you to all my guests today. katy balls, deputy political spectator, michael freidenburg president of reuters news, thomas cock, general editor of the bristol live, catriona stewart from the glasgow times. and stephen bush from the new statesman. i am back with you next week. thank you all for listening and watching.

thank you. take care. good afternoon. it has been an unsettled thunderstorms around. we will hold on into the evening hours to the sunshine. this is early on. the thing continued over the next couple of days and it's going to be a theme of days and it's going to be a theme of some sunshine around, heavy downpours, thunderstorms and temperatures remaining quite cool for the middle part of may. they pressure very much driving our way, sitting right across the uk, particularly towards the south. quite breezy for the rest of the afternoon and evening on the south coast but light winds elsewhere. plenty of showers and some thunderstorms bringing hail and lightning. the fewest showers will be across the far north of scotland. also down to parts of northern ireland, a fair bit of dry and sunny weather. into the evening and overnight, continuing with the

showers, gradually easing through the early hours of monday morning. a relatively damp and mild night. temperatures 6—10. although low pressure is moving away towards the east, it remains near enough to influence our weather and we've got this frontal system leaving three as well. that means on monday we are expecting another day of sunshine and showers. many places will start off on a largely dry note with some sunshine around. through the day, based showers building. through the afternoon, they are most likely for central and eastern parts of the uk where they could be heavy, thundery bringing some hail and lightning. temperatures between 11—16 on monday. into tuesday and that theme of sunshine and showers continues. it looks like the heaviest and most

frequent showers will be for southern parts of england and wales but they could be some further north as well. some sunny spells in between these heavy showers but again there could be some thunderstorms and temperatures only 10-16. thunderstorms and temperatures only 10—16. three the remainder of the week, it stays unsettled and we could see more persistent rain and windy weather for thursday into friday.

this is bbc news. the headlines at 4... the united nations holds talks, as the conflict between israel and palestinians in gaza continues for a seventh day. the secretary general pleads for peace. fighting must stop. it must stop immediately. rockets and mortars on one side... must stop. i appeal to all parties to heed this call. efforts to combat the india variant of covid ramp up in england, ahead of lockdown restrictions being relaxed tomorrow. i'm confident that we can take the step tomorrow, but we should all be careful

about how we take that step. so, you asked me about eating indoors with people.