as for the brazilian footballer pele, widely hailed as the greatest ever to play the game, his death last week and funeral this tuesday were widely covered across bbc news. the finaljourney now complete — and what a journey it was. laid to rest in his beloved city of santos. not a block of flats, but a necropolis fit for a king. ken drew recorded his thoughts for us on video. whilst the death of footballing

legend pele is undoubtedly sad and certainly very newsworthy, to have six days of continual updates and news reports on the demise of a brazilian footballer seem to me to be just a little bit excessive, perhaps. others put it more strongly, such asjenny fenwick... now to a loss of another kind. after the ending over the past few months of dateline london and the film review — both reported on this programme — a third news channel staple had its final edition on monday, signed off by david eades, who himself left the bbc this week. just to say that tonight has been the final edition of the papers, here on bbc news channel. all i can say now is thanks for watching. the papers theme plays

but many people had plenty to say about the dropping of the papers — a nightly review of the next day's newspapers featuring two guests, normally journalists. one of its original presenters, clive myrie, described it as "the end of an era," tweeting... and we've heard from a number of fans, including helen murphy... muriel crane added... well, the move comes ahead of the planned bringing together of the domestic news channel

and the international world news channel, expected in the spring. and we will be exploring the wider implications of that merger in a future edition of newswatch. but in the meantime, this is what the bbc had to say... the rhetoric from the powers—that—be at the bbc talks more and more these days of the need to become a digital—first organisation. amongst other things, this means a greater emphasis on news delivered online — and increasingly, via the bbc news app. if you have that installed on your phone, you can choose whether to receive breaking news alerts — and if you do so, you'll have noticed it ping

with greater frequency of late. that's annoyed carolyn harris, who wrote to us... and dr stevejohnson asked... stephen blakemore also got in touch with us about this, and this week, spotted this breaking news alert, pointing him to an article by the bbc�*s royal correspondent. he recorded this video for us. so here's the thing — - you're at work, you're out

and about, you're relaxing at home and you hear this. _ chime so you reach for your phone, - you think, "what's happened now?" | but no, it's not breaking news —j it's a plug for comment analysis, an article on the bbc news appj or website, or there's coverage about to start on the news channel. sometimes it's an open question and you have to click _ to find the answer — _ some people call that "clickbait". so what is the editorial guidance - on the use and abuse of news alerts? well, to answer that very question, i'm joined by stuart miller, the digital news editor for bbc news. thank you for coming on newswatch. so, has there been a decision to put out more alerts than you used to, and what is the guidance? yeah, so we're definitely alerting more. not every news alert is a breaking news alert, we do it for all sorts of different... so it doesn't always say "breaking"? doesn't always say breaking news, and it doesn't always

have the sound there, as well. but as well as the biggest news moments, we also want to alert people when to follow live when there's a big news event — like pmqs was mentioned there, which has been contentious week in, week out for some time. and live is a big component of what we do now, and the audience wants to follow along. and we see that when we alert those things for follow live, the audience comes in millions and they stick with the live page, as well. so it's very much not a clickbait thing. one of the viewers there was saying, shouldn't it be for specific events, and shouldn't you have the option to say, "i just want breaking news alerts," like a court judgment or a major...? yeah, and i think i think that's a really good piece of feedback, and that's something we're working on just now at the moment. getting the best bbc content to people across the board is a really important part of our public service mission. at the moment, it's a bit one—size—fits—all, though, because, you know, because of the way our apps work. so we're working just now to build

more opportunities for people, people to tailor what they get to their own needs and for personalisation. but fundamentally, we want people to get the biggest stories and the best bbc content and analysis to their phones without them having to go and looking for it. i suppose what some of the viewers feel, which is coming across, is they don't like the idea ofjust getting adverts for bbc news content, because that's not what they signed up for, it's not an alert. yeah, and i think what alerts are has evolved a lot over the last few years, not just for the bbc but for every news organisation — from the days when it was just straightforward breaking news text messages, to much more of a richer content mix. but we find that because live and people are having the chance to follow live — if it's a laura kuenssberg interview with rishi sunak, for example, people want to know that they can follow that live. that's a news event of itself. and that's more than just advertising, that's part of the news conversation that's happening online.

you see, you can get a dozen a day sometimes — i've gone through my phone at the end of the day when i've not been looking at it, and i've been stunned by how many alerts there are. i have to say, bbcjournalists have been among the people who said to me, they think it's just too much, phone's pinging all the time and theyjust want the big breaking stories. do you actually set a limit on how many you might send out in a day? well, you know, we're always aware of how many we're sending. sometimes there are just a lot — you know, there's been a lot of news over the last year, and that's been a driver of how many times we're sending news alerts each day. we don't have an upper limit, we just want to get the best content people. but i think it's really important for us to hear this and calibrate it, because we're having these conversations every day. we sanonny dymond's opinion piece on prince harry's book was sent as an alert. isn't there a dangerous erosion of the boundary between news fact and comment when you send out alerts or things like that? so, you know, i would call that an analysis piece based onjonny dymond's expertise as a royal correspondent, and his assessment of the royal family and the impact of the book.

that's very different from an opinion piece, where he expresses his personal view on it. and contextualising the biggest stories is a big part of our public service mission, as well, helping our audiences understand the currents and context around this biggest news. and with bbc experts likejonny or chris mason, that's important for our public service mission, as well. so, in concluding, then, it sounds like you're considering whether you can offer a more tailored approach to alerts, possibly the option that people could get fewer alerts focused on actualfacts, which is what i think newswatch viewers are asking for? yeah, i mean, yes, we are doing that. we want people to be able to tailor the experience for themselves, and we also want to build products that learn what people are interested in and do it for them. we're working just now on being able to sign up, opt in, opt out of news alerts, newsletters so that the news comes to people. but i wouldn't draw this distinction

between "the facts", and then, everything else — we also send push alerts around big investigative features, the best bbcjournalism from, say, panorama or newsnight. and that's not traditional breaking news — but it's factual and accurate, and it's trusted, and we're not going to stop doing that. stuart miller, thank you so much. thank you. 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, email newswatch@bbc.co.uk, or you can find twitter at @newswatchbbc. you can call us on 03700106676. and do you have a look at our website — bbc.co.uk/newswatch. that's all from us. we'll be back to hear your thoughts next week when we'll be interviewing the editor of breakfast, richard frediani. but for now, goodbye.

good evening. it's been a mild, wet, and windy start to 2023 — and that theme continues this weekend. one area of low pressure moves away, and this next really deep and powerful low replaces it for the weekend. so more rain, and that rain piles up, particularly through tonight and the start of saturday, showers follow. you see the wettest weather is expected in the west, perhaps as much as 40mm through some parts of wales and the southwest, but all of us will see some rain. so it's a good job that we had a brief window of respite on friday for many — but as you can see, that rain is marching in during the course of the night across northern ireland, scotland, western parts of england and wales. there is a met office yellow warning across wales and the southwest because there's a concern, with the grounds saturated in the rain lasting for quite a long time, we could have some further flood issues. ahead of that, temperatures will temporarily dip away — a chilly start to the night, but they will lift then later on. so the weekend is looking unsettled. we'll have rain or showers,

and some strong winds to go with it, as well. so some fairly strong winds with this band of rain, which then clears away from much of scotland, northern ireland, wales, and the southwest, but it drags its heels across eastern areas during the day. it may linger for much of daylight here, but lots of showers rushing in behind and the winds escalate again to gale force. so temperatures actually fall away during the day after a very mild night, and i think, as well, add that wind on — it will be tempered a little. those winds touching gale force, as you can see in northern and western areas. lots of showers continuing through saturday night into sunday, as well, so it's not going to be a cold night either as we head towards sunday morning. there might be a bit more brightness and sunshine around during the course of sunday itself, but that low pressure�*s closer to our shores. so with it, gale force winds as well as heavy showers, rumbles of thunder. still cold enough for a little bit of snow on the tops of the mountains across scotland, but again, nothing too cold for this time of year when we normally expect our lowest temperatures to be

like 7—9 celsius. a little bit chillier than saturday. what about the start of next week? well, we may see a brief respite from those strong winds and showers on monday as this ridge of high pressure builds in, particularly monday night. so quite chilly, but waiting in the wings, we've got the next spell of wet and windy weather. so it does look, again, very unsettled and mild by tuesday.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. kevin mccarthy fails in his 12th and 13th attempt to be elected speaker of the us house of representatives — but claims he now has enough support to win. president biden says history will remember those who protected american democracy — as he marks the second anniversary of the capitol attack. prince harry faces criticism over remarks about killing taliban fighters in afghanistan in his controversial autobiography. ukraine says russia is continuing to carry out attacks — despite declaring a ceasefire for orthodox christmas. a record number of ambulances were delayed dropping off patients at a&e in england over christmas — as the prime minister admits the nhs

is under enormous pressure