michael durkin put it like this: but over the course but over the course of the campaign, we have also heard a very different perspective, articulated last week by robert crowder. and joan fujimura emailed: we did also hearfrom a more

satisfied customer, a viewer called stephanie, who wrote: well, let's look back at the coverage of the american election with paul danahar, the foreign editor of bbc news. thank you for coming on the programme. some viewers feel different reporting standards were applied to kamala harris rather than donald trump, and when he said something outrageous it was written off as a joke or hyperbole, she was subjected to greater scrutiny. do you think that is fair? no, and we covered him in the same way. we had a team following around donald trump, we had a team following around kamala harris, gave them equal time, we reported on the things that they both said, that were queried. we did fact—checking throughout the debate that they did. so, no, we covered them evenly. we gave them the same amount of our time. we didn't run hours and hours

of either one of their rallies that they did, the american networks did, but we didn't do that. so, no, ithink we got it right. i think if you look at the audience figures, we had 9 million people staying up on a tuesday night to wednesday, to watch the coverage. we had a massive audience online. and if you look at our position in america we are considered to be the most trusted brand in america. so the american electorate certainly thinks that we act like we don't have a dog in the fight, and i think that's an unfair reflection of what we do. do you think there's a challenge for what even—handed reporting means? did the bbc call out donald trump enough for claims that were widely regarded as clearly false? we did. we treated donald trump as a credible politician, and a credible candidate, and so did the american electorate. this time around he won the popular vote, so it was right that we treated both of them as serious presidential candidates, and we checked what they said. we queried what they said, and we reported what they said. i think we challenged them both equally, and we picked up

things that they got wrong, and we challenged the policy. what would you say to those viewers who feel the bbc gave donald trump too much free publicity for his attention—grabbing stunts and rhetoric? i think, actually, all news organisations learned a lesson this time around with donald trump. i was the washington bureau chief throughout the last campaign, and the four years of donald trump's presidency, and there was a real sense, i think, that his novelty factor gave him too much coverage. so i think not only us but even the american media, this time around, were very circumspect about how they reported him and made sure they didn't get dragged into what is effectively a show, sometimes, with donald trump. and i should say on the other hand, there was some viewers, we heard one in our comments earlier, he thought the bbc had a clear bias and treated trump as the bad guy and harris as the good candidate. i don't think we did. i think the interesting thing about covering donald trump was that we actually got better access to the white house, and to republicans in his

administration, under him, then we did under obama, because trump had a very level playing field towards the media. we, as i say, followed him around, but i've been on air force one with him, my colleagues have been we treated him as a credible politician but it's important that we do, because it's important, this was not the process this time around, some people argue last time around it was, he got massive swings all across the country. he got the popular vote. he's a credible president in the eyes of most americans, we can say that now, and we treated him like that. last weekend the bbc had a poll which was, harris had ahead in iowa, which turned out to be completely wrong. did you put too much emphasis on that poll? i had a conversation with my colleagues, and i pointed out that poll in iowa was actually done in a way, i mean, she's a respected pollster, but what she does not do is look at the make—up of the people she's talking to.

she doesn't look at education value, she doesn't look at the demographics of it. so we have had caveats on that poll, a lot of media organisations did jump on it as an outlier, some of them were thinking it was going to be a massive change in the way the race was run, but no, we did caveat that, we were careful about that, and i made that point to my colleagues. we didn't have a play at that one. paul, you will know that we did get a number of complaints about the number of uk—based presenters and reporters the bbc flew out to cover this election. could you not have doubled down or rather doubled up on your existing us—based staff and used them more instead? we used them a lot, we had most of our us—based staff and they are the vast majority of the people we had at the bureau, they were all over the swing states and as you will see from the output they were reporting on all of the coverage, they were inside the studio presenting. the reality is, this is a massive, massive election. it is a massively

consequential election. we gave it the coverage that it required, and if you look at how everybody else did it, it was the front page of every single newspaper in the world. it was the lead story on every single television channel in the world. the bbc has a lot of output, there's a lot of people interested in it, on this occasion, yes, we definitely surged. we surged like everybody else, because it's a really, really important story. paul danahar, thank you. the big royal story on the bbc this week was prince william's trip to south africa to announce the latest winners of the earthshot prize, which he founded five years ago to support eco—sustainable projects around the world. daniella ralph reported on the award from cape town. prince william wore a sustainable blazer from a vintage shop and biodegradable trainers as he walked the green carpet at the earthshot awards ceremony. sammy bonani! but the attention of many royal

watches was elsewhere, on an investigation by channel four�*s dispatches programme and the sunday times, which found the royal family has received millions of pounds of income in rent from the nhs, schools and the armed forces. angela hurley thought the bbc should have paid more attention to those revelations.

we put those points to bbc news and they told us: finally, back to the us election and a complaint from patricia snell. it has been a frantic final day of campaigning for kamala harris. well, patricia, the reason for clive referring to her as �*komala,’ rather than �*kamala' or �*kahmala' as donald trump normally puts it, is that she herself says it should be pronounced like the punctuation mark, as was demonstrated to her two grand—nieces this summer at the democratic national convention in chicago. and what are you here to do? to teach you how to say our auntie's name. ok, so how do you pronounce it?

first you say 'kama' like in a sentence, then you say la, like la—la—la—la! put it together and it's one, two, three, kamala! truly, american and british pronunciation are complicated things. thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share 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 us on x. and do have a look at previous interviews on our website. that's all from us for now. thanks forjoining us. do think about getting in touch, and perhaps even coming on the programme. we'll be back to hear more of your thoughts on how the bbc covers news next week. goodnight.

good afternoon. it's still predominately cloudy but largely dry out there. we've had mist and fog, particularly over the hills, but not that much rain, just nuisance—value drizzle. looks set to stay that way for many this weekend, although there will be some subtle changes. the subtle changes through the rest of the day will be a bit more brightness around, with drizzly showers from the north and east, northern scotland again seeing a little bit of sunshine, as we're seeing across both the north and west of england and wales. but that's not helping the temperatures, chilly out there, just ten celsius. even with the sunnier skies in northern scotland, the change in wind direction today is making a change. we had 16 yesterday, just 13 today. through this evening and overnight, we keep those clearer skies in the north and east, so a touch of frost. it's largely frost free, misty, foggy over the hills and drizzly. but some rain coming

into the west and that weather front will sweep away all this low cloud eventually. but there is the chance as a result of these fronts for a little brightness for the services in the south and east tomorrow morning. but the best of the sunshine comes through the afternoon across scotland and northern ireland behind that weather front. i think tomorrow will feel slightly less chilly than today because of that change in wind direction, up to 15 celsius. but as i mentioned, we will have to wait until monday across much of england and wales before that front sweeps that low cloud out the way. and high pressure returns but in a slightly different orientation this time. so, monday, a fine and sunny day for many, patchy cloud around but nothing as we've seen so far in the last seven days. feeling more pleasant, 12, light winds, around average but in the sunshine feeling more pleasant.

tuesday into wednesday, we've got to watch developments in the north sea. we could see a weather front brushing into the south and east but high pressure keeping things predominantly dry. this will feel chillier with the cloud returning but sunshine elsewhere. and because the skies are clearer by night, we will pick up some fog and frost as well. only then, temperatures getting to average by day, around ten. the outlook for much of week is dry and settled with the fronts mostly in the north and west. as ever, plenty more information on the website.

live from london — this is bbc news. another blow to prospects of a middle east peace deal — qatar is reported to have withdrawn as a key mediator between israel and hamas.

buckingham palace announces queen camilla will not attend remembrance events this weekend while she recovers from a chest infection. playing the blame game — the former speaker of the us house says president biden is partly responsible for the democrats' election defeat. an adviser to donald trump's campaign tells the bbc ukraine needs to admit it's lost crimea to russia. at least 25 people are killed in a bomb blast at a railway station in western pakistan. and mark cavendish — one of the most successful cylists in history — announces his retirerment. hello, i'm lewis vaughanjones. we start with breaking news from the middle east, where prospects of any deal

to end the israel—gaza war have