this is bbc news, the headlines... huge crowds gathered in front of buckingham palace for a spectacular open—air concert that marks the queen's 70 years on the throne. in a tribute to his mother, prince charles, praised what he called "a lifetime of selfless service." russia says ukrainian forces in the eastern city of severo—donetsk, have suffered critical losses and are pulling back — but ukraine insists it's still pushing back russian forces. severodonetsk has become the main goal of russia's offensive. both sides remain locked in a battle for control. hong kong's annual vigils to remember the tiananmen square massacre are in doubt after authorities banned this year's event. police officers have

been out in force, threatening to arrest anyomnestaing a commemoratiion. saturday marked 33 years since the 1989 crackdown in beijing. —— to arrest anyone commemorating the event. now on bbc news, it's the media show with katie razzall. hello. this week, we're talking to dan walker as he moves from bbc breakfast tv to channel 5's drivetime news. what made him go? and as the big broadcasters gear up for thejubilee celebrations, we'll be finding out what it's like to cover the royal family with the bbc�*s jonny dymond and itv�*s chris shep. and asking, is there any room in royal coverage for criticism? should there be? laura clancy, author of running the family firm, is also here. but we'll start with dan walker, one of the big beasts of breakfast tv.

he spent six years fronting the nation's most popular early morning television show. those 3am alarms must feel likejust a bad dream now, because on monday, he starts his new role at channel 5. dan walker, welcome to the media show. why did you make the move? well, it had nothing to do with the 3am start, although i am even though i've stopped doing breakfast now for a couple of weeks, i am still waking up occasionally at that time in the morning. poor you. i think it takes a while to sort the body clock out. i think it isjust, if i'm honest, just opportunity. i think channel 5 came and had a chat and sort of said in the nicest possible way, we want you. and they said, we don't want you to just do the news. we'd like you to come and have a set number of hours every year of your contract to come and make tv for us. and i've got a creative role in coming up with what that tv is. and, you know, you speak to a lot of people who work in television on this programme and everybody who works in tv and probably who listens to this will know that those

opportunities don't come around very often. so you couldn't have done that at the bbc? the bbc weren't offering you something like that? it wasn't a case of me going to bbc and saying this and channel 5 have said this. "what have you got?" i never did that. i've been really open and honest with the bbc in the whole time i've been there, really. and i just felt that there are opportunities at channel 5 that maybe i wouldn't have got at the bbc. and i think it's also a really interesting time in the industry generally, and channel 5 is a fascinating place to be at the minute. i think they make some great programmes. i think there's not many commissioning... most of their commissions recently have been brilliant shows and who doesn't want to get the chance to work where anneka rice works? that's a good point. i mean, i think they're moving massively in the right direction all the time and i think it's a really exciting place to be with a really creative team. yeah. and i'll come back on channel 5. ijust, you were reported to be onjust under £300,000 a year for your bbc work. i'm assuming channel 5 offered you quite a good deal.

to what extent did money play a part? i can be brutally honest about that. money has never, ever been a motivating factor for me at any point in my career. they are paying you more money, presumably? well, when i first started out, i had two degrees at a 2—1 in history, and i had a first in broadcastjournalism. and i was working at a commercial radio station in manchester earning under £8,000 and working 18—20—hour shifts a day on occasions. and after six months, i got promoted to be sports editor there, working exactly the same number of hours with two people working under me. i think my pay went up tojust over £8,000. so now if i was motivated by money, i would have left a long time ago. the job's like that. but i love the job, i love the opportunity. it's always been a real privilege to me to work in this industry, and i don't take it for granted. and i'm really thankful to get the chances that i do get. and i hate talking about money and there's nothing more embarrassing than your salary, whether it's right or wrong, being on the front page of a national newspaper. which i guess is another reason

to leave for channel 5, because they don't have to publish the salaries, unlike the bbc. again, that wasn't there... i'm not going to talk to you about pay all day. of course i'm not. do you think you'll miss breakfast? yes, massively. but i also i've done it for six and a half years. and i think that not because of me, because it's just the sort of nature of the industry. i think thatjob now is so much bigger than when i started it. i mean, now there's a huge sort of independent outside process to find whoever replaces me on breakfast. when i started the job, i think i turned it down a couple of times for reasons i can't quite explain to you. i don't know why. and then i was asked to go and sort of sit in the studio for a couple of days, which i did, and i started thejob, i think two weeks after that. i think the scrutiny on tv news now is so much more and more under the microscope than it ever has been before. and thatjob is a really big job. you speak to politicians every day. the prime minister regularly.

you're sort of talking to opinion formers and opinion makers every day on that show. and it's a really significant role and i think that's great for breakfast tv. but i'd done it for a long time. and i love a new challenge — learned to dance last year. so now i'll go and have a go at it. and i was interested in that because obviously talking about being on strictly, which, you know, was a big deal, did you ask to do it and when you thought about doing it? did they ask you? did they ask you — how does it work? and in terms of your profile, what are you thinking about? you know, what is it going to do for me? did you have any did you have any kind of strategy? i don't mean in terms of winning it. ijust mean in terms of what it might do for you. i can answer all of those questions. i said no to strictly four times. you're a guy who says no and they keep asking. i'm getting a lesson in no matter what you say yes. i said no four times and i said yes last year for probably two main reasons. 0ne, i've been talking about covid for 18 months

and ijust genuinely itjust felt like having a bit of fun and not talking about death tolls and horrible stuff. and also my kids who are 14, i2 and 11, they all sat me down and said, we'd like you to do "saturday mash up and strictly, please. " so i'd done saturday mash up. so that's one of the reasons why i signed up and i didn't have a strategy. and i think some people do go into programmes like that. i know on last week's programme, a couple of weeks ago, you were talking about reality tv. and i think some people do go into programmes like that and they think, "what's thejob i can get out of this? can i find a partner? i want to become more famous." fame and fortune and froth and all those other things have never, ever motivated me. ijust went in to have a bit of fun. i got on really well with my partner and i learned an awful lot about her, about myself and i learnt how to do a foxtrot. so it was all good stuff. definitely useful stuff. well, ok, let's come on to your new show then. you know you're co—presenting the news at 5pm on channel 5. i mean, back in the day,

channel 5 news for people old enough to remember was the innovative kirsty young presenting sitting on the desk. can you give us a sense of, you know, whether you've got what your innovations are? is there a dan walker way of doing news now? that's what the dan walker way of doing news is to make it not about you. i fundamentally believe that is essential. and, you know, when i talk to students or school kids about getting into the industry, i try and make a point of saying that i've spent a lot of my life trying to get out of the way of the story. and i think there's you know, there's an obsession and a real interest and a good interest in the way that we do news at the moment in this country. and i think at one end of the scale, there is the here the cold, hard facts. and i'm going to present that a bit like a robot. and at the other end is watch my programme

because i've got loads of massive opinions and you'll care about them. and i think in the middle is i suppose the best way of saying is news with feeling where by you're not presenting it in a vacuum, you're not doubting it in your own opinion because who cares about what i think? but you're doing it in a way which is in connection with your audience, and you understand who they are and what they're going through and what the impact of the stories you're talking about will have on their lives. and i think you can connect with your audience in a really special way if you do that properly. and that's what i've always tried to do, both at breakfast and before that, and that's what i will try and bring to an already well—oiled programme at channel 5, because i think they do connect with their audience really well, and that's what i want to do. that's if there is a style of news, that's it. do you worry, in the nicest possible way, i'm going to say this, it makes you the kind of bland, slightly inoffensive choice, sort of in the middle — that kind of third way of news — the appeal of the straight white male. no, i mean, i've never even considered that — all i try and do is be as genuine as i can and do the bestjob that i can

and work hard to try and make great tv. and thankfully, those doors have kept opening to me, even though i've said no to them sometimes. yeah, exactly. now you... yeah, yeah, yeah. i enjoy doing what i'm doing. and the other thing, katie, is i always try and make sure that the programmes that i work on are the best fun to be a part of. and if you go and ask anybody that i've ever worked with, and if you ask them whether they think that i'm bland and boring, i'm not sure they'd agree with that. the answer is no. your style on breakfast, you just talking about opinionated journalism at one end of the scale. that's not you. your style on breakfast was clearly very different to piers morgan's, who was, you know, regularly going up head to head with you on itv�*s good morning britain. and there was rivalry there, you know, and piers morgan said recently, "dan, who?" when he was asked about your decision to leave the bbc. you've both now left for new ventures. we actually spoke to piers morgan on the eve of his talk tv launch. now, the headlines around that show, obviously since then have been about the low audience numbers. and i wondered if you have any

advice for piers morgan. piers is very good at what he does. and i've always said that about him. and while he has gently tossed the insults around over the last few years, i've always said that good morning britain have done a greatjob when he was there. it's been brilliant to see susanna reid's journalism in recent weeks. ithink, you know, the interview she had with the prime minister was brilliant. it's been good to see a bit more of her. but he's struggling on a new channel that people aren't... i wish so much... i wish him all the very best with that. i think it's a big challenge for him. but he's, you know, he's very good at what he does. the one thing i'm quite proud of is that i never walked off when carol kirkwood said anything to me. so i guess i take that as a claim to fame. and talking of bbc breakfast, i mean, obviously, bbc breakfast is on a high. we all know that it's hitting highs of more than two million viewers last year when you were there. you're moving to channel 5 in a slot, which is, you know, much, much less popular at the moment than that,

you know, probably a quarter of that audience. so you're facing similar things, i guess, to piers morgan in terms of that shift. why would you move? because i like a challenge. and i think what channel 5 have got in the minute is a really good programme. and, you know, they, they came and... i suppose you could say headhunted me, for want of a better phrase. and i know that i can go there and i can pour my full enthusiasm and years of experience into that programme. and hopefully we'll get some more viewers. we want to make it an appointment to watch tv. you know, it's on before the six o'clock news it's on before itn's offerings. it's sort of on at a time when probably similar to breakfast in terms of audience. so the plan is to up those numbers? yeah, of course. yeah. and that's how you judge success in television, is it? but i also want to make it the best programme that we can make it. and i think having met the team, having met the editor, having met claude eliza as well,

who i'll be presenting it with, i think we've got all the elements to make it a really successful programme. i'm looking forward to starting. great, and i've got to ask you because you are just the latest of the bbc�*s presenter talent to be leaving the bbc. you know, there's you, there's my old colleague emily maitlis, jon sopel, andrew marr, who said he wanted to get his voice back by leaving the bbc. now that you're off the leash, what is it that you really want to say? looking forward to more than four hours sleep, katie. i've got nothing but nice things to say about the bbc. but what about getting your voice back? do you feel... did you feel when you... when you ask someone who's bland and boring to come on your programme, that's what you get. i'm not saying you're bland. i don't know. i don't feel like i've got anything to shout about. i'm not going to sort of be released. i think the shackles that people think that you are under at the bbc don't exist. i've never been told what not to say or what to say or what to ask or don't ask

the prime minister. that's never happened in my many years at the bbc and bbc have kept me out ofjail on occasions. i've been chased down a train in china by some police officers when i was filming a documentary many years ago. and the only thing that stopped us — me and the camera operator going to jailfor the night was our bbc car. because you see those letters and they mean something all around the world. and i think, you know, the bbc does need to change. it's a big old beast and it's sometimes slow to do things. i know w�*re going to talk about royal coverage. yeah. coming up to it right now. i think there are there are certain things that bbc can do differently and improve in a sort of constantly changing market. but it still does a lot of things brilliantly. and there are some wonderful people that work there. and whether it was sport or breakfast or quizzes or strictly, i've had the privilege of working with some of the best in the industry there, and it's not over. my bridges have not been burnt at the bbc. i hope to work for them again.

fantastic. well, dan walker, thank you. dan will be on channel 5 at 5pm, weekdays from monday, june 6th. but don't go away though, dan, because i want to stay on the subject of news and with thejubilee taking centre stage from many of our broadcasters, specifically royal news and how it's covered. chris shipp is the royal editorfor itv news. jonny diamond, one of the bbc�*s royal correspondents. and laura clancy, author of running the family firm, is also here. laura is also a lecturer in media and sociology at lancaster university. and, johnny, as we've been hearing so much about the brilliant people at the bbc, let's come to you first. you know, you've been a washington correspondent, you've been a europe correspondent, you're now a royal correspondent. is it the same job in terms of how you do it? i mean, i think the core of it isjust about the same. you know, it's about finding stuff out and setting it in context and explaining it and doing that in an interesting way. and it has the great advantage of being sort of full of colour and history.

and so doing it in an interesting way is perhaps easier, frankly, than making an industrial dispute on the west bank interesting. but so much of it is very different, actually, from anything i've done at the bbc. it is... it is, i think, of its kind — largely because it is so mediated. it is so... i mean, for want of a better word, controlled by the palace because of their effective monopoly on information and no otherjob that i've worked at, no other brief has that monopoly or near monopoly in operation. so that makes it very different, actually. so the core isjust about the same. but the reality is, is, is very different. and how do they control it? just to interrupt...

sorry, how do they control it? what do you mean by that? how does it work? i mean, it's partly because of the sort of public, private nature of the story and the tension between those two, which is essentially that most of the institutional staff, the state staff, even the ceremonial stuff is it's colourful, but it's not in itself interesting. it's actually quite dull. what is interesting to audiences is the personal stuff, and there is an implicit deal at different degrees in royal coverage, which is you show a bit of ankle and you get if not favourable coverage, you get more coverage than you would do for any other sort of cause out there or any other body. and that'sjust part of it being the royal story. so that is one degree of control. the other is, you know, nearly everything they do, they inform you through their own source. and that source will quite happily say whether it's

an effectively a press officer or an actual source will quite happily say, no, look, that's private. and that's the big difference is the stuff we are interested in. they are very easy and able to say that's probably private. chris shep, let me bring you in. you know, you cover politics in your previous roles, you know, where presumably sort of 20 plus people all vying to be your source. how close to royal stories can you ever get? you know, you make a good point. i was a decade in westminster and i think actually i'd say there's more than 20 people. it's like 650 mps who are willing to talk to you, plus an army of special advisers who all want your ear to bend, you know, to tell you their story. the difference i've found moving from politics into royal is those sources are much more limited and the information they give you is much more limited. so yourjob, really, i suppose, as a royal correspondent, is to put those tiny bits of information together within the wider context and within your experience of doing the job for the past however many years, and then make a decision, make a call, say what you think is happening,

say what you think will happen. and i think that's the main difference of thejob. the challenge is getting as many different sources as you possibly can in all the different palaces to speak to you as frequently as possible. and that's kind of easier said than done. and, laura, let me just bring you in. do you think there's space for criticism in royal reporting or to your mind, is it all a bit deferential and unquestioning? i mean, i think there's not enough critical coverage . of the royal family, i but i don't think that's necessarily the fault - of individualjournalists. i agree with what's been said around how it's- the structures that are built in. - so things like the royal rota system, for example, - that gives access to particular types ofjournalists_ that you need to apply - to and which then might limit maybe more independent journalists, for example, | to get access to those stories. and i did... i did interviews with some royal correspondents, - actually, for some research, and they were telling me, i i if you're in these institutions i like the bbc or big newspapers, you're going to get better. access to stories than people who might not be and people

who might not be on - the royal rota system. chris, what do you think about that? is that the case? do you feel the bbc and other you know, the big players? i'm not saying you're not a big player, but you know what i mean. did they get better access? and also, you know, where do you stand on putting a critical voice in? would you put a republican voice in your packages? i mean, i wrote a story today about a yougov opinion poll which shows that support for the monarchy has declined dramatically in the past ten years since the queen's diamond jubilee, particularly, and i think probably worryingly for the institution of monarchy or the firm, as meghan famously called it in her 0prah interview, is that young people are as much likely to support a republic and elected head of state as they are to support the monarchy. something like 33% for one, 31% for another. are we critical? well, look at some of the stories in recent years. prince andrew. were we critical of what happened there? yes. were we critical of the royal family when meghan said that she was driven to suicide? were we critical of the late duke of edinburgh

when he crashed his car, you know, in his late 90s in sandringham? i think there is a place for criticism. we do criticise where it is needed, but i think a lot of the time royal stories are generally a little bit more upbeat. sometimes our editors want them in the bulletin because they, you know, they lift the bulletin. sometimes i think that's quite important to get the right mix in a bulletin. so yes, there's a place for criticism and i think that that has to go in there. and i think we have to acknowledge that a good 20 or 30% of the country want us to have an elected head of state and not have a monarch. and laura, would you say there's a difference between individual criticism, criticism of individuals within the royal family and then criticism of the institutions? yeah, absolutely. i think i agree. i mean, i think the coverage i of prince andrew wouldn't have come out without journalists. i think it's perfectly valid point. - i'm kind of i wonder— to what extent that dan spends into criticising the system, talking openly about evenl talking openly about what - republicanism might look like.

for example, we never really see that being spoken about. and i'm also interested in kind of the value. . i'm really interested in the name like a l royal correspondent. so you've got the foreignl correspondent, you've got the political correspondent, you've got a royal— correspondent. and how that might kind of give the role a type of value - and kind of put royal news. on the same standing as all of those and what that might do lthen in the public imagination. | and johnny diamond, can i bring you in you as the bbc voice head, do you think the bbc has a very distinct relationship with the royals? i think parts of the bbc do. bbc news is sort of relationship with the royals is based, i think, largely on audience, which is we have a very big audience and that makes the bbc a good place to pop stories. for the other parts of the bbc, which i shouldn't speak about too much because i work for bbc news and i don't know them as well as i know news. for places like bbc

events and the people who make the documentaries, they have a very long standing relationship with the royals. it gives them privileged access, isuppose. but anyone who does any kind of deal with the royals in terms of broadcasting get some kind of privilege and generally gives something back in return. does that mean it's difficult to put a critical voice in then? no. because, no, because, look, when the royals are doing a documentary like unseen queen, which, if you haven't seen it, isjust gorgeous. and i'm nota big one... that's beautiful footage of home movies, right? yeah, it's amazing. it's lovely. but you know, if you're doing that and if you are doing it with really anybody else, there will be conditions attached. and yes, they're particularly stringent with the royal family and that's the deal they're able to strike with news that is different that we broadly share. i mean, most of our material

with people like chris and organisations like itv news and we don't get sort of favours in that front and that means we can be as critical. i mean, look, laura, i mean, i think you've got — you make a very good point. i think part of the problem is the age and affection of the sovereign. i think part of the problem is that, as chris says, it's an upbeat story. and it's seen as a sort of happy end point for a lot of bulletins, particularly tv. and i think part of the problem is a classification problem, which is if you are republican and i totally get this, if you are a republican, you see nearly every royal story as a political story and you think, where is the counter voice? actually, i think most royal stories are more like sports stories, and we don't go out and do stories about how most people don't care about the world cup or lots of people don't care about the world cup. we just cover it. and so that for me is a sort of structural problem in the argument about criticism. 0k.

as this is interesting, it's a good point to bring in dan walker, who's sport and news all in one. you know, you've obviously met various royals on breakfast. how do you view the line the bbc and perhaps other broadcasters walk when it comes to covering the royal family? it's a really interesting why it's been fascinating to chris, tojohnny, and to laura on that as well. i mean, i've made one of those documentaries that johnny was talking about there. i spent quite a bit of time with prince william on a documentary about mental health, and i've also covered a lot of royal stories like jubilees and various members of the royal family as well. the one thing that i often think about is, is that issue of of balance. and i listened to whatjohnny said there about the way we cover sport, and that's a really good point. but i think sometimes, for example, in my old job at bbc breakfast, we would regularly practice for a category 0ne death. you know, you do the obit procedure to make sure that once that happens and that would be like prince charles or the queen or the queen mother before she passed away or,

you know, the duke of edinburgh, you sometimes practice those sorts of procedures. and i would always say once we did those practices, that i felt we go too far on the tone. and when the duke of edinburgh did die, i do think that the bbc did make a mistake in putting the same output on bbc one on bbc two, and... and got a lot of criticism for that indeed, and rightly so. and i think that's where the balance should have come in, because you can't force grief upon a nation, you can report on it like johnny saying, but you can't make everybody feel the same way because some people don't feel that way about the royal family. i think that's important. 0k, and just chris shep, bring you in for the end. you know, there was this documentary by your colleague tom bradby, harry and meghan, an africanjourney. it showed that all wasn't well with the sussexes. you know, they spoke about their mental health struggles. the duchess admitted she was not ok, really. and that made news around the world. and i wonder whether there were consequences for itv based on what perhaszohnnie was saying earlier, just about, you know, reflecting that

particular side of the story. i don't think there can be i consequences when actually what you've reported is the truth. - what tom uncovered in thatl documentary and i was doing the news every day, working kind of alongside him. - what he uncovered was that all was not well with the sussexesj inside the royal family and, well, what happened? - well, it turned out to be very true, because a couple - of months later they went to canada _ so i don't think there can be consequences if what you'rej telling us the truth - and if we are reflecting as best we can the truth, which is ourjob as journalists, - then i think we shouldn't. worry about consequences. and if there are... if they do come, for whatever reason, then so be it. - because ourjob is to tellj the truth as best we can. and indeed, you are all doing that and will continue to do that, i'm sure. thank you so much to you all. i'm afraid that is all we actually have time for. dan walker, good luck on channel 5. chris shep, royal editorfor itv news. thanks for coming on the programme. jonny dymond, bbc royal correspondent, and thanks

to laura clancy, author of running the family firm and a lecturer in media and sociology at lancaster university. thank you so much for watching. the media show will be back at the same time next week, but for now, goodbye. hello there. once again, we've got a bit of a north—south divide weather—wise going on across the country. scotland and northern ireland, seeing the best of the drier and sunnier weather again today — whereas further south for england and wales, there will be more cloud around some heavy rain, too. very wet start for sunday morning across parts of wales, the midlands, eastern england, maybe some rumbles of thunder. that rain eases down a little bit is it travels further northward through the day, but it will stay rather cloudy and damp with further pulses of rain. maybe a bit of brightness across southern areas later in the day, but that could just set off a heavy shower, temperatures reach around 19 degrees. chilly underneath that cloud and rain through central areas — best of the sunshine

and warmth, though, across parts of northern ireland, central and northern scotland. through sunday night, outbreaks of rain continue across much of central, northern england and wales, parts of southern scotland, as well, joining in some of the rain. but northern scotland, a clear and cool start monday, double—figure values again across the south. monday and tuesday look a little bit quieter in between weather systems. apart from the odd shower, we should see some sunshine and temperatures around average.

this is bbc news. i'm simon pusey. our top stories: rock stars, including sir rod stewart, wow the crowds at the buckingham palacejubilee concert. prince charles gives a moving tribute to his mother for her 70 years of service. you continue to make history. you continue to make history. you laugh and cry with others and, most importantly, you have been there for us. for the 70 years. and a surprise appearance on screen from the queen with the nation's favourite bear, where we found out what she keeps in her handbag.

perhaps you would like a marmalade