this is bbc news. the latest headlines... crowds have cheered ukrainian troops as they entered kherson after russia's retreat. the city had been occupied by russia since march. it's been hailed as an historic day by the ukrainian president, volodymyr zelensky. thousands of russian troops have retreated across the dnipro river. a ship with 230 migrants on board, which was refused entry to italy, has docked in france as a row between the two countries deepens. giorgia meloni, the new italian prime minister, has criticised france over the handling of the migrant rescue ship, the ocean viking. president biden has told the cop27 climate summit that he wants to re—establish the us as a reliable

global leader on tackling climate change. he said he's committed to the target of halving us carbon emissions by 2030 and apologised for donald trump pulling out of the paris climate accord. that's it from me and we'll be back tomorrow in the evening, but now it's time for the media show. hello. what will the bbc�*s plans to do more local news online mean for the likes of the sunderland echo or bradford's telegraph and argus? the biggest newspaper groups sathe plans announced last week are totally misguided. the boss of one of them is here, but we'll start with the world cup in qatar, which opens in less than a fortnight. "the worst world cup ever" is how pr week headlines it. the latest controversy was just yesterday. the tournament's ambassador said being gay was damage in the mind.

human rights groups have been calling on players to protest on the pitch. meanwhile, the disgraced former fifa boss, sepp blatter, said again this week that qatar should never have won the bid. so how did it happen? have a listen to what the liverpool manager, jurgen klopp, said last week about where he thinks the blame lies for the decision to go to qatar. you are alljournalists. you have should have sent a message who didn't write the most critical article about it and not about because it's qatar and things know about the circumstances, nor about the circumstances, which was clear. and this is where we are guilty. that's how it is. but now, telling players you have to wear this armband or if you don't do it, then you are not on their side. and if you do it, you're on their side. no, no, no. it's footballers. it's a tournament we have to organise and the players go there and play and do the best for their countries. joining me isjoey de sao, investigations writer

at rhe athletic, miles coleman, producer and writer of fifa, uncovered a new documentary on netflix, and beth fisher, who's a freelance sports broadcaster. welcome to you all. joey de sao, let's start with you. isjurgen klopp right that journalists dropped the ball on this one when it comes to qatar? no, i don't think he is. i think there's been lots of fantasticjournalism on this. i think you have to look back to the sunday times reporting on the bidding process itself. and there's been countless reporting on human rights including this very interesting documentary, which i'm looking forward to watching. it's four years after russia invaded ukraine, and then, you know, the world cup. i think a lot of the very good human rights reporting was forgotten when the football started. — and then look what happened. i think people are kind of determined not to make the same mistake. 0k. beth fisher, what's your view? i mean, is it a legitimate criticism, do you think, from jurgen klopp? listen, i have arrived

in this industry quite late into my life, and what i've realised very quickly is that sport is a very small world. and just a bit like politics, my experience is that everyone is kind of embedded with each other and it takes a brave person to call out the people that effectively give you work every day. i've seen with my own eyes, you know, sports and governing bodies cancel out journalists who've maybe said the wrong thing. so, has klopp got maybe the right opinion? i would say i don't think he's completely wrong. i think, you know, just like politics, i think sport has a lot to answer for in terms of the journalism that's out there, and basically, who's going out with each other and things like that. so i don't think we can say that we are as innocent as we'd like to be. 0k. i mean, miles coleman, joey there was talking about some of the great reporting that's been done, not least the sunday times stuff. there was also the guardian trying to establish how many migrant workers had died during this period of building the stadiums. you're the producer and writer of this new documentary about fifa. what is your take on what klopp said aboutjournalism? i think on the one hand, if we look at the climate in 2009, i 2010, when these bids

were being evaluated, | like nobody took qatar particularly seriously l the qataris_ admit them themselves. so, to some extent, not a ton was being written about them j because everyone looked at that bid and went, _ "well, surely they're not going to go for that." . when they did, there was obviously kind of- a big shockwave and people, you know. _ went and reported on it more. that's naturally how. things go in reporting. but i think the important thing to to focus on with| the klopp comments is let's take the counterfactual. - let's imagine that people had published reams and reams l of paper saying how dangerous the qatar world cup _ would be for workers, i how impractical it'd be. let's imagine that there - was just hours of of air time and millions of column inches devoted to it. . it wouldn't have madel a blind bit of difference because the 22 men —| and they were all men who voted for this — they - didn't even read the bid book. didn't even read the bid book, really. we spoke we interviewed with a gentleman. - we interviewed a gentleman called harry nicholls, - who wrote that bid book for fifa. -

he said nobody picked up the phone to him - and asked him . a single question. his conclusion was that these guys didn't even read it. - so what's the counterfactual? ifjournalists had written - everything possible criticising qatar's bid, these guys were not interested in evaluatingl the bids on that on that basis, on its merits. . the bids on that - basis, on its merits. they were interested - in what was in it for them. and joey, on the wider point that beth's making about sportsjournalism more broadly, do you think that there is a reluctance to hold power to account at times simply because if you do, you might get barred from that interview with the manager or the interview with the player that you really need to do yourjob. i mean, absolutely. i think there's that constant battle when you're reporting on a club or a player, _ the access is very important and people want to read interviews and stuff. i think with qatar, it's almost the other way that almost the other way, it's now kind of complete open season with very legitimate criticism of qatar. it's almost going to look odd not to. i think it's really penetrated public consciousness way beyond the sort of media circles that there's

lots of great reporting on russia in 2018, but it's so widespread and so mainstream now that i think as a sports reporter anywhere reporting on the world cup, these human rights issues are going to be front and centre, which we haven't really had before. beth, did you see this coming a mile off? listen, you know, as someone who's part of the lgbt community, i'm not surprised that issues like this suddenly pop up when they're right in everyone's faces, just a bit like black history month and everything. when it's current and in yourface, the cis, white, straight community suddenlyjump up because it's something they can write about. so, listen, for me, funny enough, my sister lived in qatar for a couple of years. i went out. and as a gay woman, i'm not at risk as a gay man, as at risk as a gay man, but i was certainly aware of my behaviours out there, what i tweeted, you know, even messages back to my girlfriend. so, am i surprised? absolutely not. and for me, i think it absolutely sums up the fact again about diversity at the top level, all made by, i think, all white men.

so that, for me, says it all. and are you concerned for gay colleagues who are going out there? listen, i'm in a group with journalists from from that community, and i think they're really torn. i think for all of us, there's a huge dark cloud over this tournament because look at me, for example — in wales, it's the first time we've qualified in 64 years. they're announcing the squad in about a few hours and to be honest, ifeel completely down about it. i should be up in the air celebrating. and for me, it's a huge kind of, i don't know, like i said, dark cloud. for me, i wasted too many years in the closet lying to people to then be basically gaslighted by fifa and others in thinking that this world cup is for everyone — it is absolutely not. and i think it's a huge slap in the face to the people who live in qatar, who are part of that community, who risked their life by even coming out and being their authentic selves. and for me, that is an absolute travesty. and joey, i mean, we can't really put qatar aside, but as part of a sort of wider

story about sports reporting, i mean, is itjust that in an in a sense, we're seeing bigger shifts in what sports reporting must pay attention to? you know, you look at foreign investment into the premier league, for example, problematic sponsorship deals, that sort of thing. it's just about much more than what's on the pitch these days. absolutely. i mean, i spent a week in qatar back injuly reporting on the build—up to the world cup, and middle eastern politics is now inextricably tied up with top level football. you've got qatar, not only the world cup, but paris saint—germain. you've got abu dhabi, which effectively owns manchester city, and more recently, you've got saudi arabia, which owns newcastle united. i mean, it's very feasible that in five years' time, the three clubs battling out at the end of the champions league stage are going to be abu dhabi, saudi arabia, qatar. it's impossible to sort of put all this aside as a football fan. 0k. 0k, miles, well, you've made this four—part documentary. what did you uncover about fifa? i mean, the word uncover might be a grand way of putting - what most football fans kind i of already knew in their gut — was that fifa, especially under. sepp blatter, under havelange,

going before him, i stopped really caring about the good of the game, which was its slogan. - which was its slogan, and they really started caringl about their own self—interest. you know, i go back to the to the first point about why- the world cup ended up i in qatar in the first place. you had an executive committee made up of 24 people, - two of whom were banned - for corruption before the vote, so knock it down to 22. you had 22 people who had a lot of stakeholders - that they had to look- after when they were making these decisions, notjust- on where to hold the world cup, but for all of football. they need to take into account the players, . what they took into - account was themselves. and i think to that - extent, what we found out in our documentary was, i you know, it's a pretty damning indictment of all of humanity, is that when you get people . in a position of absolute power and you give - them pretty much total impunity. _ they're going to make some decisions that are based - on what's best for them. and i think that's really sad. because football means a lot

to a lot of people. it means a lot to the three - of us being interviewed today. huge emotional connection for so many people. huge emotional connection. - and ijust wish they'd looked after it better| and they cooperated with fifa. i mean, some people might find that extraordinary after all the negative publicity they've had that they, you know, allowed you some access. yeah, i think that's something that we get asked about a lot. j and i think people who who follow fifa will kind of see i the reasoning behind it. so, let's take 2015, which those arrestsj in switzerland as - a sort of watermark. pre—2015, the presidentl is blatter and post—2015, the president is infantino. the infantino regime is essentially, - and i'm simplifying i here, but essentially suing the pre—blatter- the blatter regime and what they're saying is i that we the current fifa are a victim of blatter's fifa| and their mismanagement. we're not the beneficiaries

of this corruption. - no, no, we've been- negatively affected by it. and the fifa lawyers under infantino- are very quick- to argue and saying, "no, no, we're not- the organisation benefiting "from this organised crime. "we're we're the organisation harmed by it" _ the doj agreed - and over $200 million was given to fifa. so, why do they cooperate with us? look, maybe one answer is because they're greatl 0k. well, fifa will be showcased again in qatar over the next few weeks, and we're going to come back to the practicalities of covering qatar later. but let's go to this story. you know, last week the bbc announced that it was going to radically change the sound of its local radio stations in england. programmes after 2pm on weekdays will be shared across multiple stations. various mps said the bbc is doing a disservice

to local radio listeners. that side of the story got a lot of coverage less scrutinised at the bbc�*s plans to redirect its resources towards more digital journalism and what impact that might have on local newspapers. in a moment, we'll hear from henry ford walker, boss of newsquest, one of the largest local publishers in the uk, because his bit of the news business is up in arms about the plans. but before that, here's rhodri topham davies, the bbc�*s director of nations, on why the bbc is doing what it's doing. to go back to basics here, the bbc has a charter commitment to serve local communities across england and across the uk and as audience behaviour changes and moves, so does the bbc. so it's absolutely right. as we see growing usage of online news services that the local news services provided by the bbc keep pace with that change. now, i hear the accusation from some commercial competitors that the bbc somehow crowds them out. they're right, aren't they? well, we haven't seen

evidence of that. if you look right across the world at the challenge facing local commercial operators, you see the same sort of trend. so, even in countries which don't have a significant intervention, public intervention like the bbc, firstly, the bbc is a different type of news operator. if you look at the trust in the bbc compared to any other news service out there, compared to any other news service out it is leagues ahead of other operators, and we saw that during covid. why was it during covid that the bbc of all news services saw the biggest uplift in its usage? it's because ultimately, the bbc has a trust with the audiences that is out of that but at the moment, that service is mainly around broadcast, right when it comes to local services and if you're moving more into digital,

do you accept that you will be competing more directly with the local news providers? well, ithink, as somebody who uses local commercial online services and the bbc�*s own online services locally, i think they're quite different beasts, to be honest. i think the overlap in stories is very small these days, about 10—15%. and what we see is a very clear, commercial, local strategy built that's not the game we're in. we're not here to steal market share from anybody. and as we see increasingly, audiences move online — not just the young. i mean, this old argument i've heard over the last couple of weeks, you're moving young. if you look at 65 to 75—year—olds, more of them turn to online news now than turn to radio news.

and when you say online, online does mean text articles, that is what we will be the bbc will be doing in future. that's that's primarily what we do. i mean, of course, we gather video as well. and when a story is very visual, we'll also use the video. but it's primarily text articles, yes. and i'm interested in your plans, including new dedicated services for particular places — bradford, wolverhampton, sunderland and peterborough. i wonder how you chose that area of focus. well, we looked at a lot of audience data which showed that in terms of local coverage, we saw particular deficits in that in those cities. it's interesting because those are places that do have local news providers. you know, bradford's got the telegraph and angus, owned by newsquest, wolverhampton has the express and star and both the midland news association and also the black country bugle. i could go on. those places do already have news providers. yeah, but our starting point is not if there is a commercial news supply in that area. the bbc isn't a sort of journalistic polly filler there to fill the holes where they don't exist. we have an obligation to every licence fee payer in england

to provide local value to them. you mean a dearth of bbc provision, not a dearth of provision? what we were seeing in the audience data were that local audiences there felt the bbc had a weaker connection with them than in other cities where we've been long—established. i mean, peterborough is a very distinctive area that was was underserved and underserved. so, could that be just because they're connected to these other providers who are providing a good news service in those areas, which is why the bbc is less connected? well, again, there's some mythology here. i mean, most users will use a mix of services, so the notion that an additional service suddenly has an immediate detrimental impact on a competitor i don't think holds true. but the other key point is it's about the licence fee we have. we have a contract with our licence fee payers across the uk to provide them with local services that feel relevant to them. that was the bbc�*s director of nations, rhodri toffin davies.

henry fore walker, chief executive of news quest, is with us. and presumably i need to get you to correct me, henry, because in a moment of madness, i referred to one of your titles as the telegraph and angus, and obviously i didn't mean that i meant the telegraph in argus, as i said at the front of the programme. also here is alice enders, head of research at enders analysis. but henry, if we start with you, you know, newsquest, one of the largest publishers of regional newspapers in the uk, including some of the areas, you know, that david davis was talking about. what is your response to what you've heard? well, as you've articulated, katie, we're obviously very concerned about the bbc's expansion into local online news. we think it's potentially very damaging. it will, in our view, further undermine the efforts of ourselves and other commercial local news publishers to build a sustainable future, because it diverts eyeballs away from our sites, which we rely on to drive advertising revenue and to drive digital subscription revenue. it diverts those eyeballs to the bbc. and i heard obviously rhodri cite bradford

earlier and he talks of some deficit in bradford. well, we are the proud publishers of the bradford telegraph and argus in bradford. we employ 18 local journalists in bradford. we think the market's very well served. we have approximately i think we reach about 80% of the bradford population each month. bradford's a city of about half 1 million, about 400,000 people in the city come to our site every month. he talks about peterborough and the bbc going deeper into peterborough. well, we publish a hyperlocal cycle. a hyperlocal cycle, peterborough matters in peterborough. i know that national world also has the local newspaper there called peterborough today. i know that reach plc publishes cambridgeshire live, which covers peter in debt, so ijust don't see the need for the bbc to come into this space. i don't think the bbc should be using the licence fee to do things that are already well provided by the commercial news sector and even worse, come in and distort the sector and make it even tougher for local news publishers who have

who have had it publishers who have had it pretty hard in the last ten to 15 years. ten to 15 years in any case. i read earlier that newsquest made a £45 million profit last year. you've cut jobs. you're a very lean company. your us parent is the massive news is the massive news chain gannett, which owns usa today, amongst other things. why do you think you couldn't cope with the bbcjust doing a bit more local news online? well, we run a lean organisation. it's £45 million, actually. wasn't £45 million. i think it was £30 million. but yes, we are a profitable organisation, but we need to be profitable to sustain, to sustainjournalism. you know, without profits there is no sustainable model to localjournalism. we've always tried to keep our investment in local reporters. where we have made cost reductions is more in the management and production roles. 0k, alice enders, how tough is the climate for local news economically? well, there's no doubt. that the top line revenues of local news media have halved -

in the last 15 years. what's a real shame is that l the bbc and local media have collaborated veryj effectively on the democracy initiative, - which has placed about 165 reporters in councils, and so on all over- the place to make local democracy work better. and that collaboration, unfortunately, - which i think all of us - who are independent thought was a really good way for - the bbc and local media tojoin forces at the local level — and unfortunately, this particular initiative, . which has been, obviously trailed since march 2021, i has not benefited from that kind of collaboration. - and the dispute has rolled on. 0fcom has not gotten involved. yes, i was going to ask just interrupt for a second to ask henry. you know, briefly,

are you making, what does happen next? are you making the case to 0fcom, who potentially, of course, could stop the bbc from doing this if it wanted to? we actually think there is a case we absolutely think there is a case for 0fcom to intervene and i have to say we're disappointed by the passivity of that regulator, and we think they left the door open in 2019 when they let the bbc expand substantially into scotland by starting up a dedicated scottish channel. i think the bbc now employs more newsjournalists in scotland than any other media organisation. thatjust seems unbalanced to me. we hope that 0fcom will awake from its slumber and do something about this. 0k, thank you both. i want to turn back as we're coming towards the end of the programme to the world cup in qatar and kind of assessments of it as a media event. i mean, beth fisher, clearly you're not going despite being a journalist who presumably would have gone in if it was somewhere else. are you planning, for example, to write for example,

to write or cover it in a different way from a human rights perspective or whatever you might choose to do? yeah, listen, i mean, i was with itv and there was a chance i would have gone a big chance. but i'm glad i didn't have to make that decision because, quite frankly, the more i think about it, the more i'm kind of i don't even want to watch it, which, for me as a huge sports fan, is like i said, it's heartbreaking. wales as well are in the tournament for the first time in 64 years. it's honestly my worst nightmare. you know, in one hand i've got, you know, proud welsh woman and on the other hand, you've got this country which goes against every single value i have in my in my body. and that for me, it goes back to fifa and i'm so angry at them for making me having to feel like this in a sport which should be for everyone, no matter race, religion, gender, sexuality, whatever. and on this occasion, again, we go back to the case that no diversity within their top part and surprise, surprise, they've picked a country which really does mean

a minority are— minority are kind of cancelled out of enjoying the football. jerry, is it going to be, as pr week are suggesting, the worst world cup ever? well, i think a really interesting question is when the football starts, you know, say it is really exciting and there are four games a day, which is more than usual. and i think qatar have thought for four, 12 years that, yes, there's all lots of criticism. it's very contentious. but as soon as the football starts, that will all fade into the background. yeah, you were nodding there, miles. yeah, it's funny, because, you know, we saw this- with russia, right? everyone was talking before russia about hooliganism, i about the possibility of racism. _ and one of the things, you know. _ russia basically- will be remembered by a lot of fans as quite i an enjoyable experience. and i think the difference between this and russia i and perhaps where the qataris haven't quite _ played their cards correctly, is that, j you know, it's one _ thing for loads of fans to come into russia cheaply. it's a pretty cheap cost of living. - alcohol is pretty prevalent

and and easily available. l and and easily available, so football fans are having a drink on the streets. - it's not going to be like that in qatar. i 0ne kind of anecdote that i sticks with me from my time in qatar was a senior member of the supreme committee, mentioningl to me football fans will will love being in qatarj for its excellent galleries and - museums and me thinking, well, that's not really- what will win over a lot of football fans, what will win over them is sort of partying i on the streets and, you know, the sight of thousands - of peruvian fans in russia. that;s not really going to be the case here. i and i think the fear that's in a lot - of qatari minds at the moment is after all this money, - in the press, - they're not actually going to get the pr uplift out of it that they were after. - it's interesting, isn't it? i mean, you were saying, jerry, that perhaps the football will start to take centre stage. i read that itv�*s offering ad spots at a 20% discount. the expectation is that viewing numbers will be lower than. numbers will be lower than

if it had been held in the summer. do you buy into that? yeah. i mean, advertisers, as we've seen with elon musk, advertisers don't like to be associated with controversial things in general. you know, of course, iwill certainly be watching at 1pm on a monday, as i would even i wasn't working in football because i'm obsessed by it, but lots of people won't. i think there's a lot of people who watch games when they're convenient, when their friends are on them in a sunny pub garden. but this isn't going be like that. in november, people are very busy. it will all feel a bit different. beth fisher, what's your view on that? i mean, do you think this is the line in the sand where sports reporting changes or our assessment of football changes? or is thisjust, you know, going to be more of the same? for any sports journalists or any journalists to have to be able to have a kind of free kind of punch at a big organisation is great. but i will say this — the irony that the british press in particular are talking about qatar when in the uk there's no openly gay male premier league player, and i think that's mainly because of some of the papers that report on that,

and also the way that the trans community in particular are being vilified by government and the media as well, for me, just stinks of kind of hypocrisy. and forfor me, really, the real kind of, you know, example of that is the way we're talking about qatar and back home here in the uk. we're having the issues. your own ducks in a row first. exactly. 0k. well, and miles, you know, you made i think it shows that i sportswashing is still a a strategy that people gravitate towards. - if you are qatar, what other options do you have? - you're a little peninsula. you're very wealthy, - but you have no goodwill towards you in the - international community. sport remains. despite all the negative pr, we're seeing, - an incredibly powerful way| for relatively small nations to make themselves big players on the international stage. - that's all we've got time for this week. thank you so much to all my guests —

tojerry durso, miles coleman, beth fisher, henry ford, walker and alice enders. and thank you all so much for watching. that was the media show. goodbye. hello. saturday morning getting off to a cooler start. early rain clearing northwards from northern ireland as it pushes north across scotland. quite chilly under the clear skies towards northeast scotland early on before it clouds over. for england and wales, extensive low cloud, mistiness and fog patches, for many, breaking out into brighter skies in the afternoon. there'll be some eastern spots, though, that could stay quite grey on into the afternoon, maybe with some drizzle. touch cooler for scotland, for northern ireland, for northern england, still very mild for much of england and wales — 16—18 celsius. see more in the way of low cloud becoming extensive with some mist and fog in places in going into sunday morning, and some of that that's formed across some eastern parts of england in particular may be reluctant to clear on remembrance sunday. whereas elsewhere, if you start grey, you're likely to break out into some sunny spells once again.

a lot of dry weather around, although the thickest low cloud may produce some drizzle. rain heading towards northern ireland as we go towards the end of the day. very mild again before it turns cooler next week.

this is bbc news. i'm lucy grey. our top stories: crowds cheer ukrainian troops as they enter kherson after russia's retreat. the ukrainian president hails it as an historic day and thousands celebrate. they've been singing here for hours, singing popular songs like this, singing the ukrainian national anthem. this is the most significant victory for ukrainian forces in some time. moscow describes the withdrawal as a "military manoeuvre" but analysts call it one of the biggest failures of russia's invasion of ukraine. president biden urges countries at the cop27 climate summit in egypt to raise their ambitions, saying the us is on track to meet its own targets. one of the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchanges ftx has gone bust and its chief executive has resigned.