hello and welcome to newswatch with me, samira ahmed. it made the news this week that the convicted child abuser and former presenter rolf harris had died. did bbc news get the tone of its coverage right? and with the deaths this week of tina turner and martin amis, too, how do editors decide how much prominence to give each obituary? first, it's been another busy week in the world of politics, which started with the return of the prime minister on monday morning from the g7 summit of world leaders injapan. he was accompanied on his trip there by a number of political

editors from print and broadcasting organisations, including the bbc�*s chris mason, who had the first question at a press conference given by rishi sunak. we've got time to take some questions from the media. could i start with the bbc, please? thank you, prime minister chris. bbc news. will you ask the independent adviser on ministers interest to look into the country's conduct? to help her deal with being caught speeding. and do you have full confidence in suella braverman? did you have any questions about the summit? others will, i think. some irritation shown there by the prime minister, and it was shared by

viewer carol wright... and martin turner begged... it's not the first time we've heard complaints regarding the questions put to the prime minister during trips abroad. in response, bbc news told us... another question had been raised a couple of days before that, when rishi sunak�*s plane landed in hiroshima for the summit, accompanied by his wife, akshat murthy, the bbc news website covered their arrival with this article headed akshat murthy takes colourful step on world stage and including the information that she had chosen a variety of designer and high street brand clothes for her wardrobe. arty which commented...

and debbie lather asked... another political story also solicited some feedback later in the week on wednesday, whose politics live was discussing borisjohnson�*s referral police by the cabinet office over further potential rule breaches during the covid pandemic. keep your eye on the strapline that appears on the screen during the discussion. why would tory ministers want to do any harm to a former conservative prime minister? nobody. nobody would. i think he was merely clarifying that there wasn't ministerial involvement. he wasn't emphasising too much. no, i don't don't think he does. i think reading too much into it. that caught the attention of mark springer, who wrote to us...

last week saw a bit of a media flurry over the apparent falling out of phillip schofield and holly willoughby co presenters on itv�*s this morning. on saturday there was a development in the story which led bbc one's news bulletins that day. good evening. phillip schofield will no longer present itv�*s this morning after agreeing to step down with immediate effect. his last programme was on thursday. some viewers thought phillip schofield departure didn't deserve the prominence bbc news gave it.

one of them was jayne carr recorded this video... bbc how can you possiblyjustify giving over the first five minutes of the early evening news on saturday to the news that phillip schofield has stood down as a presenter on itv? president zelensky was in japan to meet with the g7 leaders about the war in ukraine. that, in my book, is far more important than what is no more than tabloid celebrity fodder. departure of an itv presenter, the late bbc bulletin on saturday also featured as its third story, the death of the author martin amis, and some viewers felt that deserved more attention. catherine taylor thought it... south coasting agreed... when the death of the singer tina

turner was announced on wednesday. by contrast, laura marcus thought the bbc overplayed the news. there was a third death the bbc reported on this week. here's david sillitoe on tuesday. rolf harris, an entertainer for more than 50 years who was revealed to be a serial sex offender. this the final day of his trial in 2014. why would you apologise, mr. harris? his bag already packed for prison. he had arrived in britain from australia in the fifties. an art student who made his name in television singing, joking, painting. beverley maggs was watching that and had this.

well, let's speak about all this to james stevenson, who's news editor at bbc news. and thank you for coming on newsnight. thanks for inviting me. let's start with rolf harris, then, given his crimes, the case being made by views is that the bbc shouldn't have been listening with his prior achievements. they should have stuck to reporting the bare facts of his death. well, it was a particular story to cover, and it had a particular dimension, as you might have seen, that when his death was finally made public, it became clear that he'd actually died nearly two weeks before. and we, along with other media, had been trying to establish the fact of his death. and that gave us time, which weren't able to do. but that gave us time to consider how we were going to approach the subject. and we led very clearly

on his disgrace, putting only behind that as context of why he had previously been such a famous figure in britain and to some extent, further abroad. and so we did give that a lot. thought. we didn't lead on it. we didn't headline it. we played it relatively low down in our bulletins, and we felt we'd got the balance right between dealing with, as i say, with the disgrace and then giving context about what his previous career. it's interesting what you said about not headlining or not leading with it and having it relatively low down in the light of cases such as phil spectre, rolf harris and jimmy savile. in going back a few years, is there a revised bbc policy now on how you report the prior entertainment career of convicted abusers? i wouldn't say that there was a policy. what i would say is, as with all stories, there are judgments to be made. and what i'm saying in this case is we had a bit more

time to make a judgment. sometimes a death is announced suddenly and you're into the coverage immediately. you hope you have prepared material. but in this case, we did have the time to think about it. and we thought it was important that we really emphasised the crimes, that the fact that he was imprisoned for them. and so that was a different situation to some others we've encountered. now there is also a perception which we heard there among some viewers who say there's been a dumbing down. why so little coverage of the death of martin amiss, the novelist, compared to the phillip schofield story about a man just losing a job? well, i don't think it's quite right to say that there was limited coverage. so the story broke on... again, these things. some some of this turns on when these stories break. so that's broke unexpectedly quite late on a saturday evening. we did lead the radio news with it. it was second story on our online. i'm talking about martin amis. yes. and it was in the headlines for the tv news. so i think we did give it quite a deal of provenance. it was headline news.

and so i'd slightly push back at the idea that we didn't give it a kind of reasonable amount of coverage. tina turner also died this week. and again, we saw, you know, one view of feeling that different political stories should have been the lead. and i wonder how you decide how much airtime to allocate to such deaths. well, there are lots of factors involved and actually being invited to discuss it here was is a good chance to reflect on some of the things that go into it. so there's the timing of the death. there's the there there fame, there's the material that you have available. there are quite a big set of variables along with what other news there is and so on. tina turner's daeth broke in the late in the sort of middle to late evening. and so that that was new news

to our audience by 10:00. so all of these factors go into the decision making, but ultimately it's old fashioned government. is there a generation gap? i wonder as well for the bbc in working out which. give prominent coverage, to, because some younger people won't have heard of some older people and vice versa. i think that can be a factor. it's true of when particularly stars that are known to a new generation and not so much to an older one. when they die, there can be quite often more discussion and decision making and perhaps a bit of a spread between output that's more towards younger audiences and as against those who's more focused on on a mainstream or older audience. like newsbeat or radio one might run a prominent? exactly. and so although we have a shared sense of the news agenda and the weight of stories, different platforms and different. the exact nature of the of the decision making they make and the stories that they prominence they give them to what they think their audience. james stevenson, thank you so much.

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 at bbc.co.uk or you can find us on twitter at newswatch bbc. you can call us on 037016676 and do have a look at previous interviews on our website, bbc.co.uk/newswatch. that's all from us. we'll be back to hear your thoughts about the bbc news coverage again next week. goodbye. this is bbc news. we will have the headlines and all the main news stories at the top of the hour straight after this program.

rigorous training to hone modern soldier skills is essential, as at any time they can be thrown into the heart of a war zone or humanitarian crisis. yes, so much has been to meet the soldiers of 16 air assault brigade to see how technology is helping to train troops. for these soldiers from second battalion, the parachute regiment. anything could be waiting behind this door. experience in places like iraq and afghanistan has taught the british army that entering a building in a conflict zone can be extremely dangerous. colchester in essex

is home to the elite 16 air assault brigade, the british army's global response force, specially trained and equipped to deploy by parachute helicopter and air landing. ready to be sent anywhere in the world at a moment's notice and able to perform a wide variety of roles from war fighting to providing humanitarian assistance. as a result, the troops here, like the soldiers of two para, are constantly training. british military training adapts to new threats all of the time. this might look like a mannequin that's been repurposed as a target, but this target shoots back. this is 16 air assaults new urban training facility. you don't know who indeed is in inside those urban areas, whether it be an enemy threat, whether it be a different actor, whether it be civilian. so you need to be aware of all different eventualities. it integrates a host

of technologies, including cameras, sensors and speakers which monitor and create environments designed to prepare these paratroopers for real world operations. this facility provides the integration of improvised ied explosions, different noises, dogs barking. it provides all of this realism that the soldiers would face in an urban environment on operations. so it's not only about going into a building knowing that there's going to be enemy threat inside there. it's what else is in there as well. this is called a figure 11 target. it's made of paper and wood, and it's been used by the army to hone soldiers marksmanship skills for decades. called sims striker, this sensor laden smart target aims to crank up the pressure on troops that it comes up against, notjust by shooting back with small plastic bibs.

sharp!