大象传媒

After a tough day at the office I sat down last night to watch Ricky Gervais's Extras for a bit of light relief. This week's episode was a piercing study of media distortion and irresponsible journalism.

Great. The Ministry of Defence had been accusing us all day of being guilty of both.

On Wednesday, we revealed the contents of a leaked research paper written by an officer at the MOD Defence Academy which questioned the success of the "war on terror" and suggested that Pakistan's secret service has been indirectly aiding Al Qaeda.

We didn't claim these were the official views of the MOD or the government - indeed many are quite the opposite - but we think they were both newsworthy and significant.

At first, before transmission, the MOD told us the paper was "a student essay". Then, following the broadcast, journalists were briefed that these were "just the jottings" of a junior officer. Eventually it was confirmed that the document had been written by a naval commander.

That was our understanding all along, indeed this particular commander had recently been working in the US on behalf of the Chief of Staff on Iraq, Afghanistan and the Global War on Terrorism. And the document wasn't some dusty academic study, it was due to form the basis of a forthcoming meeting of experts on the war on terror. So who is doing the distorting here?

We agree of course that these issues are sensitive and deadly serious and we must handle them with great care. But it's also the case that at present there is no greater public interest issue than the highly controversial prosecution of what's known as the war on terror.

Surely responsible journalism is to try to penetrate the fog of that war?

When News 24 ran some pictures of a bunch of (admittedly very cute) baby pandas (which you can watch by clicking here), this is what happened:

1) half of the newsroom - and one of the presenters - went "aahhhhh";

2) the other half of the newsroom - and the other presenter - said "why are we running this worthless fluff?"

3) the editor thought: where does the balance lie between news value and picture power?

Intrinsically, the story behind the birth of a clutch of newborn pandas in China is not one that would fight its way into our running orders - until you see the images of those appealing balls of fur.

It's our job to bring to our audience the latest headlines, breaking news, expert analysis and investigative journalism. But there is always room - particularly on a continuous news channel - for items that are rather less important than they are interesting.

The solid gold rocking horse given to the newborn Japanese Prince Hisahito is a recent case in point. Another example from today: a Paris St Germain defender mistimes a tackle, slides right off the pitch and takes out his own team's coach. No one hurt; it all ended in smiles - but highly amusing pictures.

Although some purists may be offended by such "non-news", audience feedback suggests such items go down very well with the majority - you can almost hear the cries of "oi! come and 'ave a look at THIS".

And now everyone - not just 大象传媒 editors - , are being most clicked on online: it won't surprise you that some of these not-very-newsy-but-ever-such-nice-pictures items are often top of the pops.

Skateboarding duck, anyone?

One of our biggest stories in recent times was the earthquake in South Asia last year.

More than 73,000 people died and around 3 million were made homeless when the quake happened last October. The majority of victims were in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, where I'm leading a small team to investigate the damage and catch up with the survivors who spoke to our breakfast show one year ago.

Just after the quake, we opened up the phonelines to hear from British Asians who had relatives in the region. We were inundated with calls from people unable to contact their sisters, brothers, parents and children. Over the last year we've kept in touch with some of those listeners to find out what happened to their relatives.

And while it's slipped off the national news agenda, it's still a massive topic of conversation amongst Muslims in cities like Bradford. Our listeners tell us that it's one of those defining stories for a whole generation with big repercussions for Asians back here in the UK.

The Asian Network recently revamped its output so that it reflects the lives of 20 to 35 year-old, second and third generation British Asians. It's been a period of heavy reflection. What kind of news are young British Asians interested in? How does the anniversary of the earthquake story fit in with that remit? Our Breakfast Show is a mix of music, news and chat - a tricky balance to get right on a heavy news day.

When we first mooted covering the aftermath of the Quake we discussed whether disaster fatigue would mean that this story is a big turn off. I'm heartened to say that already it seems the audience disagree with that depressing theory. Loads of listeners have been contacting Sonia Deol's breakfast show via e-mail and our website with their ideas on what we should cover.

They've got real concerns about where the money they donated went so we're investigating reports of corruption. They also wanted us to catch up with the thousands of children who were orphaned by the quake and they requested to hear some "good news" stories about extraordinary acts of generosity.

One of my favourites is the tale of the Yorkshire school children who were so shocked by what they saw that they raised 拢35,000 to build a new school in the quake-damaged region. We'll be linking up the two schools in Pakistan and Halifax live on-air. Hopefully we'll be able to answer some of our listeners' questions and shed some light on the reality of life in quake zone one year on. I'll keep you posted.

The Herald: "The 大象传媒 has tightened up the rules on its star news and current affairs journalists writing lucrative newspaper and magazine columns or books, and making public speeches." ()

The Telegraph: A diary feature on what happened when 大象传媒 reporter Jo Coburn interviewed former US president Bill Clinton. ()

Does the Ten do enough sport? Should we do all the main football results? Should we show match action come what may?

Do we have a duty to do it - given that many sporting rights are now not available to terrestrial TV? Should that squeeze out other news?

These questions have been running through my mind recently. The audience feedback we get when we do sport on the Ten is almost universally negative. At a recent major focus group people seemed to be suggesting that they expected sport on local, but not national, news.

Is this view of the world right - or are sports fans more shy and retiring than we might have thought?

Recently I think we may have underplayed great action in sports matches. We didn't show Xabi Alonso scoring from inside his own half the other night, or an amazing Peter Crouch goal last night. It only takes a few seconds - and even if you are not that interested in football, it is just great pictures.

The Aussies are rightly keen to ban racist abuse in their cricket grounds ahead of the Ashes, but new guidelines on language are ambiguous on their favourite term for us Brits.

"Pom" is fine - affectionate even - "whingeing pom" (guaranteed to annoy us) is also allowed. "Pommie bastard" is distinctly borderline. We thought it would be fun to link up with an Australian radio station to get reaction on all this.

It's always a buzz to get radio listeners on different sides of the world talking to each other. It's a reasonably straightfoward thing to do technically, but a bit of planning can make all the difference between a smooth link up and a radio disaster.

Time was not on our side on Wednesday morning, and stress levels were soaring in the studio as we approached the agreed time for linking up. I just hoped for the best (not a great way of editing). Victoria was as chilled as ever and happily chatted to her Aussie counterpart and some of his listeners while I celebrated not falling off air.

It was great to hear a few opinionated Aussies on the radio. They can call us what they like as long as they promise to talk to us again soon.

One listener asked why did we stress so much that a 'German' firm DHL was in a news piece for the Today programme. The listener said that surely the important thing was that it was a "private" firm and that was the principal objection of public sector unions.

I don't think the piece was written in a way that was designed to stigmatise Germany. Clearly there is some concern that the private sector is running an important part of the NHS - transporting medical equipment around the NHS network.

That DHL is German-owned shouldn't affect the running of NHS Logistics. However, the fact that this company is also foreign-owned is an important detail that the listener might want to know about. They might be interested to know that profits from this venture could be heading out of the country to DHL's owner, Deutsche Post (the German Post Office).

There has certainly been a lot of interest in the way that so many foreign businesses have taken important stakes in British business this year. The key point here is not so much that DHL is German but that it is not British.

I also think that with some companies it's important for us to give a little bit of context to the story. Most people know that Ford is American and that BMW is German but many will not know about the ownership of DHL."

Press Gazette: "Journalists at 大象传媒 News could go on strike within seven days if the corporation goes ahead with threatened compulsory redundancies, according to the NUJ." ()

The Telegraph: "The head of one of Britain's biggest media agencies has blamed regulator Ofcom for allowing the 大象传媒 to behave like a 'spoilt child'." ()

We're running a Press Pack interview with Gordon Brown on Newsround today, in which two young reporters get a special sit-down interview with the chancellor.

And off the back of it, we've decided to run a text vote: "Would you like Gordon Brown to be the next Prime Minister Y/N?"

Children can text in during Newsround on 大象传媒 One, and we'll announce the result at the end of the show. Over and done in less than eight minutes.

It's quite a simple and straightforward question, and one that's on everyone's lips, but, this being the 大象传媒, we have to check and double-check it with our editorial policy chaps.

They're happy with it, but we need to make sure that we present it correctly. Crucially, we cannot say when we announce the result, "This is what you think of Gordon Brown", or "This is what children think". The vote is, of course, a completely self-selecting, unscientific, unrepresentative piece of fun.

So we make sure that we say "This many people voted", and "Of those, this many said they liked him, and this many said they didn't". And with lots of adults watching Newsround too, we know that they could be voting as much as children are. So that's something we need to stress too.

But perhaps the most interesting thing will be to see how popular this text vote is, compared with other recent votes along the lines of England winning the World Cup and kids' views on seatbelts.

I'll let you know the outcome later.

UPDATE, Thurs 0900: 鈥nd the headline result is that, in the five minutes we were on air, 1,400 voted in our text vote, and over 1,000 of them said that they didn't want Gordon as Prime Minister. So it was a big fat "NO" on our massive video screens in our studio.

Next week we're interviewing David Cameron, so we'll put him to the test too.

Daily Mail: "The 大象传媒 has spent 拢1.2 million of licence payers' cash on 80 seconds of programming." ()

The Telegraph: Reports that pigeons are disrupting the 大象传媒's Labour conference coverage in Manchester. ()

The Guardian: "大象传媒 News is to axe 108 jobs by the end of March next year in a bid to save 拢11m." ()

We've had a few comments about our coverage of , after she was mauled by two Rottweiler dogs.

Did we vilify Rottweilers? Did we create panic amongst dog owners? I think the answer to the latter point is no, judging by the responses from the audience I've seen, but it's a fair point, and a good thing for us to take a look at our coverage and see what we said.

Looking back I really don't think we demonised the dogs. They did kill a child, and it's news exactly because it is very unusual. Every broadcast outlet and national newspaper covered this story for this reason. But we didn't refer to them as "devil dogs".

I think it would have been irresponsible for us to speculate on the exact circumstances that led to the dogs attacking the child, because we simply didn't know them and we couldn't blame parents, friends or family - we had no information.

We did however put some context about controlling dogs in the coverage from the local councillor (watch the report here).

Personally, I am a big animal lover, and know two Rottweilers. I wouldn't want our coverage to imply any blanket assertion about any breed. I hope in this case we didn't.

The Telegraph: "Bolton manager Sam Allardyce says he is planning to sue the 大象传媒 over allegations that he took illegal payments from player transfers." ()

The Guardian: A columnist criticises the 大象传媒's choice of interviewees in relation to climate change reports. ()

The reverberations of are still being felt 鈥� but not just in the world of football. They have also provoked how about how we at the 大象传媒 cover stories generated by our own journalists 鈥� particularly, as in this case, ahead of the programme itself appearing.

There can鈥檛 be much room for doubt that we used not to be very good at this.
Original reporting and investigative journalism which had taken many months of effort could disappear without trace after just one transmission. You either caught it or you didn鈥檛. On one occasion, a piece which won the Royal Television Society鈥檚 home news award made no impact on the rest of our output. That just does not feel right.

Now as some commentators have noticed, things have changed. We do try to ensure that every part of the 大象传媒鈥檚 journalism is aware of the stories being generated across all of our output and we ask editors to think about whether those stories are appropriate for their audience. There are some very good reasons for this.

Original journalism is both important and expensive. Finding things out and telling people about them first is at the heart of what audiences expect from news and current affairs. Every piece of original journalism we carry has been paid for by licence fee payers and they deserve to be given every possible opportunity to see, hear and read what we鈥檝e discovered.

In a world where the individual consumer is so much more in control, showcasing the best of our journalism becomes even more important. When we talk to audiences, we find time after time that people are unaware of something we鈥檝e done which they would have been particularly interested in. At a time when so much more choice is available, we need to find the best ways to highlight our strongest work.

Of course there are dangers which every editor is aware of. Some long form programmes just don鈥檛 translate easily into much shorter news reports. Some stories are so complicated and layered that they can鈥檛 be told in that way. And of course there is a danger of over-promoting ourselves. No one wants to watch a news programme which seems to consist only of trails and previews of other 大象传媒 programmes and events at the expense of the day鈥檚 other news.

Ultimately there is no definitive edict about exactly how and when we showcase our own journalism. Individual editors have to decide what is right for their own programmes and audiences. But we do this in a spirit of seeking to share the best of what we do with as many people as possible 鈥� that鈥檚 a measure we feel comfortable to be judged by.

On this week's Newswatch - the show which voices your criticisms of 大象传媒 News - you can see a debate on whether or not the 大象传媒 broadcast views from all sides when the Pope came under fire for .

Click here to watch the show.

Our video podcast, the is one week old today.

We launched it last week, boasting that it was "the first early morning news video podcast in the country". Not a particularly snappy boast admittedly, but it's something we're very proud of.

It's new technology and it's very exciting. It's not complicated to download, but it is quite complicted to promote.

There are all sorts of issues. Universality is one. How many people have a video ipod or MP4 player? We're trailing a product that (strictly speaking) is only available to people with that technology (I've been watching it on my home computer). Is that right?

Well, I'd argue that the same was true of digital television when I used to work at 大象传媒 News 24 a few years ago. Nowadays, the majority of the country gets digital TV and thanks to the fact that it launched when it did, News 24 is now well established, very polished and hugely attractive to those digital "late adopters".

Is it free? We had a few people e-mail us, on day one, to say it was wrong to say we were providing it for "free". Fair enough. We now say "free to download".

Do people actually want it? I'm not aware of anyone questioning the value of the video podcast yet, which is heartening. Unlike the , and vodcasts, which are in the 'best of' category, ours is supposed to be a bit different. To use a clich茅, it's "news you can use". It's around 10 minutes of news and information with a very limited shelf life. It'll probably be out of date by mid-morning, but it might be handy for your morning commute.

Thus far, the signs of take up are encouraging. At the end of its first week it was at number three in the iTunes news and politics 'league table'.

We hope to go higher and this is likely to cause me some local difficulty with my peers at the Ten and Newsnight. You see, they're very proud of their (excellent) vodcast offerings and I suspect our arrival on the scene has been greeted with some nervousness. Because of the disposable nature of our Breakfast Takeaway, I think we're catering for a different market. However, it's a sign of the power of the medium that we're all so eager to have a slice of the action.

I'd be very interested to know what people of think of it.

All papers: continued discussion of Panorama investigation into football bungs.

Sunday Telegraph: 大象传媒 plans to launch iPlayer, which will make TV and radio programmes available online, criticised by commercial media sector. ()

Sunday Telegraph: Alleges Abu Izzadeen regards appearance on Today as a "propaganda coup". ()

Daily Mirror: Abu Izzadeen interview meant "other Muslims lost their chance to voice their concerns", writes columnist Tony Parsons. ()

Daily Telegraph: 大象传媒 criticised for having shut the Thai language section of the World Service before the coup. ()

Guardian: 大象传媒 Scotland output treats Scottish news as local rather than national, says commentator Iain MacWhirter. ()

Guardian: Downing St communications director David Hill replies to 大象传媒 Head of TV News Peter Horrocks, saying Number 10 does regularly complain to 24-hour news channels about specific aspects of coverage. (No link)

Independent: Interview with Five Live's Simon Mayo. ()

Richard Hammond . His doctors are apparently "cautiously optimistic".

When news of his accident broke on Wednesday night, details were sketchy. It had an, "oh god, that's awful" factor, and I was in doubt that it should lead Thursday morning's Breakfast.

Decisions over which story should get most prominence are often very difficult. Thursday morning's news agenda was relatively quiet and this story stood out to me, and the rest of the team working on the programme.

Was it the right lead? There's definitely a debate to be had. Quite a few viewers got in touch, either by email and text during the show, or by the more formal complaints procedure route, to suggest it was the wrong call.

"Is there nothing more important going on in the world?" was one view. "The coverage was excessive," was the view of many others. One person even complained that the accident "was self inflicted and should not be news".

At the same time, we had a big response from people who wanted to relay their shock and pass on their best wishes for Richard's recovery. We use a panel of viewers to monitor which news stories have the most impact and which stories viewers want to know more about. The answer, on both counts, was 'Richard Hammond's accident'.

We don't always get the choice of lead story right and the clarity provided by hindsight is powerful. However, on this occasion, I would stick with our choice of lead. He is a well known and much loved presenter, he was attempting something extraordinary and, as we now know, there was a huge amount of interest in what happened and in his condition.

I share my thoughts on this not because I think they are necessarily particularly important (self important journalists annoy people) but because I think it's important to try to shed light on our decision-making process.

What's much more important is that he recovers - and there are clearly so many people out there who want to see him back on screen as soon as possible.

So just how do you get Abu Izzadeen, the man who at a speech on Wednesday, to appear on the Today Programme? And should he even have been on in the first place?

Today reporter Zubeida Malik has had some dealings with the firebrand protester in the past, and when she finally caught up with him on Thursday afternoon, she was able to persuade him that an 0810 encounter with John Humphrys would be the best way to ensure that his motives for making the protest were heard and scrutinised.

Of course, that's just the beginning of the story... there was an editorial judgement to be made both about whether he should appear in the first place, and if so where in the programme. The Today team discussed some of these issues and decided that this was an 0810 interview, not least because the kind of views Izzadeen holds are exactly those that Reid was seeking to confront in his speech.

There is a powerful argument to be made that presenting the most extreme voices on air actually damages the process of integrating the Muslim community into the fight against terrorism. The 大象传媒 has a duty to balance voices, and to present a representative range of views from within communities. A number of listeners were quick to remind us on e-mail of the damage we were risking:

"He is a nobody. Don't give air to these people: it doesn't help our perception of muslims, it can only be damaging."

But others disagreed: "The young man you spoke to was understandably very angry - he made a lot of points which I think we should be listening to. All John Humphrys could say was 'If you don't like it here, why don't you leave?' The young man said more than once that he loves Britain, but that he hates the way his people are being treated, and warning that if things don't change, there will be an eruption which we will have difficulty dealing with. Instead of reviling him and ignoring his message, perhaps we should listen to him and his people and see how to find a way to coexist."

We have in recent weeks set up an interview panel of young Muslims, precisely to counter the bias towards established and known Muslim voices on our output. They'll be on the programme on Saturday morning and we'll be asking them what they made of what they heard (and you can hear their first outing here).

Izzadeen and his companion were polite in person... confident and boisterous, and he came off air believing that the interview (which you can hear here) had not overly taxed him, and indeed that some of John's questions were ill-framed. An argument about whether Muslims who found themselves completely at odds with the rule of law here should move to Saudi Arabia was, he felt, more worthy of the white van driver than the 大象传媒.

And thanks to an eagle-eyed staff member, we managed to avoid a potentially awkward green room meeting between Izzadeen and that morning's Thought for the Day guest, Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks. Would they have found some common ground over the soggy croissants? Some things I feel are beyond even 大象传媒 patisserie.

Every time we run an item about climate change - which let's face it is quite often - we get a number of complaints about media hysteria.

"Oh no! Branson has just pledged 3 billion to fight Global Warming. ANOTHER excuse for Newsnight to champion the cause. It is becoming so tiresome."

"By your own standards tonight's item on global warming was a disgrace... One oversimplified interpretation of global warming is now force-fed to the public."

"Exxon funding groups critical of the increasing hysteria around climate change? Great news!"

Then you get articles like Tom Utley's in the Mail today, railing against the bien pensants of the 大象传媒, using to dismiss concerns about melting ice-caps his own ice-in-gin-and-tonic theory. It goes like this. If the doomsayers are right why doesn't your gin and tonic overflow when the ice melts?

I remember debating that one myself - a little incoherently - over iced drinks in my student days about 20 year ago.

So are we at the 大象传媒 peddling some sinister international climate change myth, or are sceptics like Mr Utley in hock to the CO2 nay-sayers of big business?

Neither I think. For years on Newsnight we've reported concerns about the effects of climate change with caution, due scepticism and balance. But at a certain point I think you've got to assemble all the available evidence and decide whether the threat is real or not. I think we're past that point and that the threat is real.

It doesn't necessarily mean, as Mr Utley mocks, that his beloved Norfolk will be under the sea any time soon, it's much more likely surely that Britain will feel the strain from the refugees from the effects of climate change who will make their way to our shores.

So what explains the staying power of the sceptics' argument?

One possibility is that they're right. But I think the real reason is that subconsciously many of us hope they're right. If Mr Blair really believed climate change was a bigger threat than terrorism, for example, wouldn't he devote more of his energies more urgently to it?

And Ethical Man aside, wouldn't you and I change our lifestyles more than the bits around the edges we've done so far?

I think most of us have an inner George Bush, or a part which is in denial and believes it can 't be as bad as all that, that surely something will turn up.

I hope we're right.

Among the audience responsereceived by the 大象传媒 in the past 24 hours was much discussion of the newsworthiness of Richard Hammond's crash. We received these three e-mails, among thousands of others:

• Whilst saddened by news of Richard Hammond's accident, I must implore you; please please don't give in to the rantings of those people who would have us beleive it's immoral to drive cars, race cars, drink beer, fly aircraft, strive for new records. It is feats of derring do of this sort which define humanity, and sure, sometimes things go wrong. That is no reason to stop trying. I for one don't want some bleeding heart liberal to wrap me in cotton wool.

• Richard Hammond, Richard Hammond, Richard Hammond.... I really do think there's more news than Richard Hammond, but listening to the 大象传媒 this morning three days after it has happened you wouldnt think so! Why so over the top about someone doing something willingly that went wrong? I didnt even know his name before three days ago and I imagine many other people didn't.

• Please convey our heartfelt best wishes [from Australia] to Richard of TOP GEAR and our thoughts are with him and his family, we have already lost two of our Icons and cannot believe the news from the UK. THIS TRULY A BLACK SEPTEMBER.

The Times (amongst others): Reports on Wednesday's crash involving TV presenter Richard Hammond. ()

The Guardian: 大象传媒 Chairman Michael Grade writes on how to achieve impartiality in the digital age. ()

I've been suffering from flashbacks over the last couple of weeks. In the early nineties I produced Question Time and now I find myself back in the scanner - this time watching over the final preparations for the new series.

The show is made for the 大象传媒 by independent producer . It's a strange feeling being here as the questions come in from the audience, and not being involved in picking which ones will get asked. That's the job of Ed Havard (the programme editor) with David Dimbleby and the team. I'm here for them to talk to if they run into any problems - oh, and to get picked on without warning by David to ask a question during the late afternoon rehearsal.

Question Time has given the public a chance to grapple with the politicians since it started in 1979. Now we're going to give people the chance to suggest questions in advance via the website.

We're also launching a Question Time vodcast. It's a 20 minute version of the show available for video download via . But the real test of the show is whether the audience in the studio gets stuck into the debate and the panellists - Charles Kennedy, Ann Widdecombe, Harriet Harman, Tariq Ali and Sir Christopher Meyer. I'm sure they will.

I saw a fascinating vision of the future (or do I mean the present?) on the seafront in Brighton this week.

It happened on the day Charles Kennedy addressed the Liberal Democrat party conference. Our reporter, Sean Curran, went to capture the atmosphere as Mr K walked the hundred yards from his hotel to the conference centre. He found it harder than normal because the media scrum was huge - and despite having a fine set of elbows Sean struggled to get near the man himself.

Watching the TV pictures of our man getting bumped and buffeted I realised why. The usual TV crews, snappers, scribblers and radio hacks are having to contend with a new tribe. In the scrum there was Michael White from the Guardian trying to record a few words with Charlie for .

Later in the hall there was Matthew Parris from the Times recording his own thoughts for , and bizarrely at one point the appeared to be being followed by a TV crew.

I think it was Greg Dyke who commented that when it comes to the new media world we are all eating each others' lunch. Given I am now writing this blog I guess he means me too. Bon appetit.

If you'd been watching 大象传媒 World at 23:50 GMT last night, you would have seen a report about the Thai prime minister arriving in London, after flying from the United Nations in New York.

Except in Thailand, however. There, just as the report began, a caption appeared in place of our signal to say "programming will resume shortly" - and then, bizarrely, a montage of Western movie stars appeared. We'd been censored... as we have been since the coup began on Tuesday.

Things have got a little better. Initially we were taken off air completely, as were CNN. We re-appeared yesterday morning, Thai time, but since then have both been subject to selective censorship.

Footage of the coup leaders appears to be allowed to go out uncensored, but anything involving Thaksin Shinawatra is being blocked. Does this mean, however, that the Thai people know nothing of what he is saying?

I doubt it very much. In this digital age, information travels freely - if it's not by satellite television, it's via email, the Internet, or by SMS. The crude censorship being deployed in Thailand may hark back to an age when Governments really could control all the information, and surely those days are gone.

Incidentally, we know exactly what's happening thanks to our colleagues at , based at . They have been carefully monitoring all the media reports in Thailand, and I'm grateful to them for providing us with the necessary information.

So last night they were able to tell us more details about the terms of the censorship, by monitoring a report on the Thai Channel 9. This is the text of the statement read out:

"Having successfully seized the executive power of the country, the Administrative Reform Committee under the Democratic System with the King as the Head of State commands the ICT Ministry to censor, prevent, block out, and destroy dissemination of information in the information technology system, transmitted through all communication networks, that contains articles, messages, verbal speech or any other discourse that might undermine the reform for democracy under constitutional monarchy as already specified in the Administrative Reform Committee Under the Democratic System With the King as the Head of State's earlier announcement."

Perhaps we should be grateful that at least they're admitting to censoring the media. This morning there was a bit more detail to accompany that statement. 大象传媒 Monitoring reports the Thai Nation newspaper's website as saying...

"The permanent secretary for Information and Communications Technology Ministry Thursday (21 Sep) held a meeting with representatives of various media. Kraisorn Pornsutee, the permanent secretary, asked the media representatives to cancel the show of SMS comments of audience on TVs as well as cancelling phone-in comments on radio programmes. Those attending the meeting were representatives of state firms, website operators, mobile phone operators, print and electronic media. The meeting took place at 13:30 local time (06:30 GMT). Kraisorn also asked the website operators to monitor comments on their webboard to screen out provocative comments."

So the authorities are trying to restrict the new media as well as the "traditional". As I've said, I doubt if that can really be effective. But it would be interesting to see what you think about that - especially if you're in Thailand...

Daily Mail (amongst others): Reports on the car crash that has left 大象传媒 presenter Richard Hammond fighting for his life. ()

The Guardian: "The 大象传媒 has persuaded John Humphrys to venture abroad professionally for the first time in more than 25 years to host the Today programme from Iraq." ()

We aim to tap into what the audience is talking about, and with Chris Tarrant's marriage breakdown all over the papers I felt we should cover it on the Victoria Derbyshire programme.

There are always those who accuse us of dumbing down (and several listeners did) but affairs affect lots of us and I was confident people were interested. Not everyone in my production meeting agreed. "Do we really think people will own up to having an affair on the radio?" asked a colleague.

The truth is, I wasn't completely sure, but there's something about the phone-in format and Victoria's style that gets people to open up. Rather than dwell on poor Chris and Ingrid, we asked how someone can possibly live a double life for 10 years.

We needn't have worried about people confessing on air. Perhaps the best caller was a quietly spoken man who told us about his 30-year affair with a married woman. When I asked him off air why he wanted to come on national radio to talk about this he said: "I guess I want to tell someone".

All papers: Sam Allardyce among those accused of being involved in taking bungs in a Panorama investigation.

Independent and Telegraph: Access to 大象传媒 and CNN restricted in Thailand after coup. ()

Independent: Charles Kennedy to appear on Question Time. ()

Daily Mail: Lembit Opik says he's complained after a Radio Five Live interview.

Financial Times: Letters challenging licence fee research. ()

Three stories vying for space tonight... And one or two struggling for air... This morning at our main editorial meeting we thought we could configure our day like this:

Expect the Panorama football bunging story to make it to the lead as soon as the embargo is lifted, and keep an eye out for New York and the UN general assembly. Ahmadinajad is speaking, so is George Bush. And Thabo Mbeki. And Kofi Annan... Very World Service you might say, but in the present climate very relevant, and most topical. Our diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus is at the UN, poised to engage in some fascinating discourse analysis - interpret every word, every pregnant pause, and keep reading between the lines.

But it's not that straightforward.

We've just had news of a military coup in Thailand. "Not a 'proper' coup, surely?" is the first reaction of a programme editor. But our correspondent in Bangkok confirms it. It's a proper coup all right with all the fixtures and trimmings. Troops out on the streets; government offices and TV stations seized, a state of emergency declared, the constitution suspended.

We speak to the Thai deputy PM who鈥檚 also at the UN. He tells us he's declared a state of emergency - all the way from New York. But he's not going back before the PM Mr Thaksin has had his turn at the lectern, later tonight.

World Have Your Say, our interactive programme, runs its first half hour exclusively on live testimonies from Bangkok. E-mails and texts are flooding in, and bloggers contribute furiously. There is a sense of urgency about it all, but the people we speak to are extraordinarily calm and seem to take it in their stride.

So there we are, it's 7pm. No casualties in Bangkok; the UN story makes it to the top too. We're waiting for the embargo on Panorama to be lifted, and can even spare some space for the lying Hungarian prime minister who says he won鈥檛 quit - (brilliant clip this morning from an angry Hungarian opposition MP who said the PM lies about everything, even about lying!)

The world is a fascinating place and all is well in the World Service news department.

One criticism that's often made of 大象传媒 News is that we are "politically correct". This is not meant as a compliment and although it's sometimes difficult to know what people mean exactly when they call us that, I understand it to mean we self-censor and don't open the mics to people with views not in line with what some regard as official orthodoxy.

On The World Tonight, we try to make sense of what is going on in the world by asking the questions our listeners want answers to, and reflect debates that are going on in society.

One way we do this is to set up debate between protagonists of a particular controversial viewpoint - we call them authored reports - where they make their own pieces and then come together afterwards to debate. We've done this successfully on several occasions, for instance, on whether immigration is necessary for economic reasons, and whether the EU needs a constitutional treaty. In the past few days, we have had Michael Binyon of arguing that the disability rights movement has gone too far and is damaging small businesses, and a disabled rights activist, Jim Kelly, countering Michael's arguments.

It was a controversial thing to do. I did wonder if it was in good taste, but decided that there is a body of opinion that has not been given a wide airing elsewhere and it was worthwhile giving a platform for the two sides to make their case and then come together to thrash it out. We also asked listeners for their views.

In the event, we got very little flak for airing the reports - this is the closest it came to condemnation

While I agree that it is important to be able to debate how far any rights can go in terms of the whole community, it would help to start from a basis of respect, which was missing from the beginning in your discussion. Please do not talk about people as "the disabled".

Indeed our listeners really engaged with the issue which suggests we tuned in with a real debate - and a slight majority came down against Michael Binyon's argument.

It's not often that a story jumps up and grabs you in ways you didn't expect, but the death of Steve Irwin has certainly done that.

Relatively well known already to children as The Crocodile Hunter, , , and the have taken us all by surprise by being phenomenally popular.

On the web, for which we have more reliable story-specific statistics, this has been our biggest-performing story for months, bar none.

Some stories have been read 50,000 times in a day, which for Newsround is a very large number.

And we did one of our regular classroom visits last week, where we show children photos of personalities and ask them to name them the person and say why they are famous.

Tony Blair: they thought they recognised him but couldn't quite say what he did.

Gordon Brown: one child managed to identify him as "Jordan Brown". The well-known glamour politician?

But Steve Irwin: they all knew him, and more to the point, all knew the precise details of how he died. It seemed that he was relatively famous beforehand, but in death has become an international celebrity.

So because of this interest, we have sent our reporter, , to Australia to report on the memorial service.

We don't do a lot of foreign trips, so this is a big decision for us; but given that we normally travel for disasters, wars and conflicts, we appreciate being able to report on something a bit different, albeit something very sad for Steve's friends, family and fans.

Adam will do three reports for Newsround on TV, including a build-up piece today, and will be talking to children in the UK via our blog.

We know that when children get interested in a news story, they want to know everything about it, all the time. We hope our additional coverage will meet that need.

Daily Mail: Columnist Richard Littlejohn attacks the 大象传媒 for inflaming the controversy over recent remarks made by the Pope. (no link available)

The Guardian: A report into a 大象传媒 investigation into football's "bung culture", which will be broadcast on tonight's Panorama. ()

Back in February, the 大象传媒 News website published a story about a after being discovered having what can probably best be described as improper relations with the beast.

Village elders ruled that he could keep the goat, but would have to pay a $50 dowry to the owner.

This undeniably quirky tale was confirmed for us by the editor of a local newspaper which had carried the report. The editor is a trusted 大象传媒 stringer.

The story attracted much interest and amusement at the time, but was soon consigned to the archive.

However, last week there were some bizarre developments. That goat report was consistently showing up in our "live stats" box as the most widely e-mailed story on the site.

The story was even picked up (as if new) by the soaraway .
It had not been re-published, re-written or revised. So how is it that upwards of 100,000 people a day were passing it on to their friends and acquaintances?

Or could it be that some crazed animal lover has been repeatedly hitting the site with fake requests?

We put our senior software engineer Gareth Owen on the case. His verdict is unequivocal. The demand was genuine.

During a single morning, the goat story was e-mailed by readers in Australia, France, Sweden, the US, Luxembourg, India, Malaysia, Tanzania, Estonia and many other countries.

Do a search on Google for "goat and marry" 鈥� and the story is everywhere. It even gets a mention in Wedding Ideas magazine.

It seems to be a fine example of the viral nature of the web. A story is picked up and passed on to an ever growing circle of readers 鈥� a sort of chain letter in cyberspace.

Only now are there signs that the interest may be abating. For the moment at least, the story is no longer registering as one of the most popular on the website.

But the experience has inevitably raised questions about whether we should do a follow up. Should we perhaps find out if the relationship is still flourishing? And what about the kids?

Among the audience feedback received by the 大象传媒 in the past 24 hours include calls objecting to some 大象传媒 reports that the Pope had "said sorry" for his comments on Islam, saying that he had "expressed regret" rather than apologised.

We also received this e-mail:

Why hasn't there been a mention of the England team's win in Portugal in fishing? Fishing is the number one sport in the UK, Team England is the best in the world, yet you don't give it a mention.

and this one:

I wish the 大象传媒 would develop a radio news programme (possibly aimed more at women), which does not involve attacking interviewees, and continual and repeated references to Islam, terrorism, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, etc but which provides news, weather, and general items of interest. There is nothing between 6.30am and 9am to wake up to which is seriously newsworthy and which relies on finding items which are relevant. I don't want to hear men talking for two hours, making their opinions known, I want a varied and refreshing attitude to current affairs. The One Show on 大象传媒 One strikes the right note, but WRONG TIME, WRONG MEDIA!

Someone, some time ago, proposed that one of the things we should make sure was on the 大象传媒 College of Journalism website was a module - a film, perhaps - showing the way we cover news stories ... as seen from the perspective of those in the story.

I can't remember whose idea it was - but it's such a good one I'll call it mine and we'll do it.

Alternatively, we could just make all 大象传媒 editors appear live - or "as live" - on their own programmes; or perhaps, someone else's. But appear live/as live, anyway.

I had the experience this week on . And it was both scary and salutary. I was invited on to talk about the CoJo's plans to help 大象传媒 journalists with basic English. A lot of viewers, listeners and online users get upset when our journalists make daft mistakes - and they do, usually under pressure... though I'm not sure that was the explanation for the capital of Ecuador being spelled K-E-E-T-O in one example.

I couldn't fault 's team for the way they fixed the interview - all according to the Marsh rule book. They were open about the subject of the interview without giving away the actual questions; and what they said would happen did.

So far so good. Plus, I've done dozens of TV and radio interviews ... but until this, all except one had been pre-recorded at a leisurely pace for editing later; the only live one was a twenty-minuter on Radio Coventry.

What I'd never appreciated before was the immense pressure on the interviewee of a four to four-and-a-half minute live/as live interview - even though I've edited thousands of programmes made up of jigsaws of just such interviews. The short, live interview is probably the most familiar tool of my trade.

But it's very strange to be on the other end of it. It was nothing Ray did - but somehow, the time pressure conveyed itself as prepared words and ideas ran off and hid. And even though I knew the rule in theory - statement, context/explanation, next question - in fact, the strands of thought threatened to get into a complete tangle.

While Ray - as a good live interviewer should - kept up the pace of the questions, something close to panic wiped the synapses on one side of my brain.

I have a vague memory of talking about Caxton and Webster's dictionary; perhaps I did, perhaps I didn't. I certainly haven't the faintest recollection of anything I said [you can see for yourself here]. Either way, I now understand rather better than I did before the lot of the hundreds - thousands, possibly - of guests our programmes churn through in the course of a day.

Obviously - being a news man - I wouldn't go so far as saying I have sympathy with them ... even though I was one, briefly. But it does, as they say, make you think.

The Independent: An interview with the 大象传媒's political editor Nick Robinson. ()

The Guardian: An interview with the head of 大象传媒 TV News Peter Horrocks. ()

Sunday Mirror: that pop star Pete Doherty has been selected to guest edit the Today programme. (The 大象传媒 has issued a statement denying this).

I鈥檝e been at a seminar entitled: 鈥淭elling stories in an interconnected world: the challenge to broadcasting鈥�.

The details of the discussion are off the record but I hope no one minds me quoting the title.

The challenge is pretty huge. We chatted, admittedly in the cloistered comfort of a Cambridge college, with all sorts of TV types, academics, and pressure groups about some of the big issues - , , the developing world - and the recurring concern is that fewer and fewer people want to watch programmes about that stuff.

As you鈥檙e reading this you鈥檙e probably one of the few, and I鈥檓 sure you worry too that in a digital age many viewers, particularly young viewers, simply tune out of news and current affairs, if the TV was even on in the first place.

The aim of the conference was - what to do about it.

I鈥檝e always been deeply suspicious of the idea that you can sugar the pill of current affairs by coating it in a game show gloss. X-Factor for Africa anyone?

But many are convinced people are actually thirstier than ever for information and ideas about the issues they care about, and that they often think news programmes don鈥檛 deliver those.

One problem is that we have tended to report what politicians, countries, and international organisations are doing, when viewers are much more interested in what people are doing and in issues which transcend national borders.

By happy accident we did a bit of transcending this week with our programme on . The idea was to look at what people - and okay, governments - are doing around the planet to improve their quality of life and see what lessons we could learn from that in Britain.

On Wednesday we featured healthcare in Cuba, transport in Portland, Oregon, education in Qatar and prisons in Denmark, and asked a group of interested parties, practitioners and - perhaps crucially -not Westminster politicians to discuss them.

The overwhelmingly positive response suggests that in this undoubted challenge we may be on to something.

大象传媒 News has bureaux in 39 foreign cities - but only in one can we go anywhere, anytime and broadcast live for radio and television using the web.

So where is this technological nirvana - Tokyo, Los Angeles, Brussels?

The answer might surprise you - it's Kabul. The city is one of the first in the world to be a giant wireless zone. Using "wi-max" and a trusty laptop, correspondent Alastair Leithead can broadcast from pretty much anywhere in Kabul - and all at a fraction of the cost of traditional satellite links.

Using a small black box on the roof of the car, the team in Kabul can pick up a 512k broadband signal right across the Afghan capital - and all powered from the cigarette lighter in the car. Gone are the days when we had to fly out staff and equipment from London to make this stuff happen.

Why does it matter?

Because Afghanistan is now rivalling Iraq as one of our biggest stories. Thirty British servicemen and women have been killed there since June. The 大象传媒 is the only international broadcaster to have a permanent presence in Kabul - and by harnessing the latest technology, it means that money we used to spend delivering the news from remote places in the world can now be spent on gathering the news. And that has to be good news.

The Guardian: "The 大象传媒 is to reveal the prices of its programmes and research into the costs of running the corporation." ()

The Scotsman: "The 大象传媒 was yesterday told by the government that it cannot expect a "blank cheque" from licence-fee payers to fund the corporation." ()

When is a poll not a poll?

Well probably when it's a survey.

On last night's Ten O'Clock News Evan Davis presented the findings of his survey of a few hundred Polish migrants living in the UK (watch the report here).

The Poles questioned thought we Brits are lazy, friendly and eat terrible food. They also revealed that many of them are earning less than the minimum wage, they often share bedrooms and are generally hostile to the prospect of a new wave of migrants from Romania and Bulgaria. (.)

All undeniably interesting, but not a poll. There are all sorts of rules governing official opinion polls, such as sample size and selection. So what are we to do? Call it a Survey of Poles? Surely not. Did we have any realistic choice? Surely it had to be called a Poll of Poles. What would you have done (honestly)?

We did obviously make it clear that this wasn't a scientific poll - in fact Evan called it in his inimitable way, a "straw poll of Poles". My guess is that our viewers shared Evan's sense of humour.

Who hasn't wondered what it would be like to live another life? What would it really be like to be a singer, a politician, or a footballer?

Philosophers and physicists speculate about parallel universes where other versions of ourselves live perhaps slightly different lives. But here and now we can only ever follow one path. But who else could I be if I'd made different choices?

This fascination was one of the reasons we did a piece on Breakfast about Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. A bit of a mouthful that. More simply these are online virtual worlds where people can be whoever they want to be or do whatever they want to do. (.)

In the virtual world, we looked at one woman who'd always harboured a thwarted ambition to sing and was now playing to sell out virtual crowds in the 'Second Life' game. In her second life her ambition was realised. Some of the 650,000 people 'living' in this particular virtual world were even making a virtual, and, in some cases, real living in the 'game'. One woman was selling virtual shoes in the game and making real money. Soon you'll be able to buy the real versions of her virtual shoes. A real living out of an imaginary world.

One couple had met in 'Second Life' and had married for real. Amazing stuff I think.

I must say the idea of joining the game to fulfil ambitions appeals. I could sing like Johnny Cash or be part of Rafa Benitez's rotation system for Liverpool Football club. Or I could just stick to the real world of reading press releases and Government reports. The fun or the real? Should I go in? Just a bit of fun, a dangerous retreat from reality or just a new way of life?

The Independent: "The award-winning comedy actor Chris Langham has been charged with eight counts of indecent assault and one other sexual offence." ()

The Mirror: "Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell will today tell the 大象传媒 to forget plans for a 拢180 television licence fee." ()

When is nudity acceptable on the news?

Ever since the infamous "nipplegate" incident involving , television channels in America have been especially sensitive to any bare flesh.

So Allan Little's piece from Swaziland on Friday (watch it here) saw a group of 大象传媒 World producers studying the US rule book very carefully... since we broadcast on American cable networks, and have to respect "local" laws.

Allan reported on the "Ceremony of the Reed" - where the King of Swaziland chooses a wife from a parade of women dressed in traditional costume. That is, they weren't wearing anything on top. There wasn't really any way of avoiding the issue - that's how they were dressed, and to have edited out any toplessness would have been bizarre.

But talking to colleagues in the US, it's pretty clear that American TV channels have become cautious to the extreme on any issues involving either nudity or swearing. One channel reportedly re-edited a cartoon because it showed a bare bottom.

So we referred to the Federal Communications Commission guidelines which govern broadcasts in the US. - on "indecency" - says the following:

Material is indecent if, in context, it depicts or describes sexual or excretory organs or activities in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium. In each case, the FCC must determine whether the material describes or depicts sexual or excretory organs or activities and, if so, whether the material is "patently offensive."

In our assessment of whether material is "patently offensive," context is critical. The FCC looks at three primary factors when analysing broadcast material: (1) whether the description or depiction is explicit or graphic; (2) whether the material dwells on or repeats at length descriptions or depictions of sexual or excretory organs; and (3) whether the material appears to pander or is used to titillate or shock. No single factor is determinative. The FCC weighs and balances these factors because each case presents its own mix of these, and possibly other, factors.

Now quite clearly (to me at least), our piece from Swaziland could not possibly have breached the guidelines. Context is critical, the guidelines say, and our context was clear.

But not everyone in the newsroom agreed, and nor did some of partner channels in the US, who we work with very closely. So we had another think - and decided to broadcast anyway. Not to have done so would have made a nonsense of Allan's story... which raised important issues about a country trying to modernise and hang on to its traditions at the same time.

Thus far, nobody has complained.

One of the perils of being an editor is the brainstorm - that time when you know the ideas need refreshing, and you ask the team to come together to think up new ways of covering the same situations and stories.

You tell them - and you think you mean it - 鈥榯he crazier the better鈥�, 鈥榥othing is ruled out鈥�, 鈥榯hink laterally鈥�, and - most foolishly of all - 鈥榶ou can decide on the best ones and I promise we鈥檒l carry them through鈥�.

In the fashionable backwater that is political programmes we don鈥檛 have 鈥榳atering holes鈥� or 鈥榞reen hat, red hat鈥� games when we brainstorm: we toss them out over drinks, laugh about them and vote.

And so it is that political programmes will be taking a Little Andrew Neil and a Little Jenny Scott to the conferences this year, and I have to defend it as a brilliant idea.

Over 600 kids entered our competition - run with Newsround - to find a 鈥楲ittle Andrew and Little Jenny鈥�. Thirty have been shortlisted and interviewed by phone. And the winners are 12-year-old Christopher Duffy from Inverclyde, and 12-year-old Becky Philips from Devon. We鈥檒l take them to each conference for a day to report and interview leading politicians. And they鈥檒l start with Sir Menzies Campbell at the Liberal Democrats conference a week on Monday.

You may say it鈥檚 a straight rip off of Little Ant and Little Dec on ITV, and so neither original nor appropriate to serious political coverage. Fair enough. But for me there are at least two good reasons for doing this, apart from the fact that it鈥檚 different and fun.

Politics is no longer the draw it used to be. Viewing figures are falling. Fewer people are voting. And most alarmingly, the average age of those who say they鈥檙e interested in politics is rising sharply. Very few people under the age of 45 take our political processes and institutions seriously. So 600 young hopefuls is a fantastic return before we鈥檝e even started. And if it draws just a few more younger viewers to the conference coverage this autumn, and introduces the million and a half who watch Newsround every day to this annual political event, we鈥檒l have done a public service.

The other reason: Little Ant and Little Dec got to interview the prime minister, and put to him some very challenging questions. For four years, Mr Blair and Mr Brown have consistently refused to be interviewed for the 大象传媒鈥檚 conference coverage, believing it doesn鈥檛 reach the people they want to speak to. Maybe now they鈥檒l change their minds.

The Guardian: A columnist talks about how language can affect broadcast interviews. ( - scroll to the bottom of the page)

The Independent: "Actor Chris Langham, who is facing a court case over child pornography charges, will not appear in a special Christmas edition of the hit political satire The Thick of It." ()

Should the 大象传媒鈥檚 political editor, Nick Robinson, have asked about UK politics during press conferences over the last three days given by Tony Blair with the Israeli, Palestinian and Lebanese leaders?

Nick鈥檚 questions - used in his reports on TV and radio bulletins - have sparked a heated debate on his blog. Some contributors feel they were totally inappropriate - 鈥渁n embarrassment to his profession.鈥� - one says that asking about important domestic issues is valid 鈥渁nywhere at any time.鈥�

It鈥檚 a tricky issue. On foreign trips like this, a group of newspaper journalists, broadcasters and agency reporters travels with the prime minister, and - often to the bemusement of foreign leaders - takes every opportunity to pester Mr Blair about what鈥檚 going on back in the UK.

At the 大象传媒 we try to do more than this. We have huge numbers of different programmes and platforms and audiences with different interests, and we try to cater for everyone.

So yes, of course we ask about domestic politics; but we cover the diplomatic story as well, allowing editors back in London to decide which angle is the right one at a particular time for their audience.

In the Middle East over the past few days, we鈥檝e had Nick Robinson and Five Live鈥檚 John Pienaar in place to pursue domestic politics; but we鈥檝e also had the Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, and correspondents based in the region such as James Reynolds, Matthew Price and Alan Johnston on the diplomatic story.

The reporting across three days has reflected different aspects of the developing stories.

So for example the 大象传媒 One Ten O鈥檆lock News on Sunday night led with Gordon Brown鈥檚 interview with Andrew Marr, and included Tony Blair鈥檚 reaction to it, which Nick Robinson then talked about from Jerusalem. But the programme also included a report by Jeremy Bowen on the substance of what the prime minister had discussed with Mahmoud Abbas.

Would it have been right for Nick Robinson NOT to have taken the opportunity to ask Mr Blair about what his Chancellor had said? Surely not 鈥� domestic politics can鈥檛 be put on hold while the prime minister travels abroad.

Political junkies will remember only too well Margaret Thatcher鈥檚 performance on the steps of the British Embassy in Paris in November 1990 after she鈥檇 failed to beat Michael Heseltine outright in the first vote for the Conservative Party leadership.

The 大象传媒鈥檚 fearless chief political correspondent, John Sergeant, pounced with his killer question: 鈥淢rs Thatcher, could I ask you to comment?鈥�

Her spokesman Bernard Ingham then brushed Sergeant to one side to allow Mrs Thatcher to declare her intention to fight on. Two days later, she resigned.

Who remembers now that she was actually attending a meeting about European security? I鈥檓 sure John Sergeant was right NOT to ask about that.

When the history books are written about this past weekend, will Mr Blair鈥檚 Middle East trip be remembered as a moment when negotiations restarted between the different sides in the Middle East, or as a significant staging post on Mr Blair鈥檚 way out of Downing Street. As the old reporting clich茅 goes, only time will tell.

But at least Nick Robinson鈥檚 questions opened up the possibilities for alternative versions of history.

Recently, we interviewed the leaders of the three main parties on environmental policy - we called our two weeks of journalism 'The Global Challenge'. All of them talk a good game but our listeners are far from impressed with the actions that match the words.

They may have a point.

Ming Campbell, questioned by our terrier-like political reporter Rajini Vaidyanathan, told us that we should fit energy-saving light bulbs. How many in your household then, Rajini shot back. "Er, I don't have any," was the Lib Dem leader's reply. Rajini knows a jugular when she sees one, pointing out that how can he expect us to save the planet if he doesn't follow his own advice?

David Cameron's view on the subject was that if more of us cycled to work and employers fitted more showers, we'd all be better off. Not much point in doing that if you have an official car following behind with all your paperwork in though is it Mr C? That's not true, said the Tory leader, before admitting, well yes it had happened a couple of times but wouldn't again.

Tony Blair told us he'd turned down the temperature in Downing Street by one degree and enthused about the energy saving lightbulbs that Ming doesn't have鈥� whilst clocking up more non-environmentally friendly air miles on his Caribbean holidays. But our listeners wondered why he is building more airport runways if he's so committed to the environment - and what about doing more to encourage green cars?

But to be fair - how green are the rest of us? Isn't it up to us to save the planet in little ways with a bit of recycling or switching off lights rather than expect the Government to do it for us?

Over on Radio 1's sister station 1Xtra, presenter G-Money had his home carbon energy audited - he scored a pathetic 3 out of 10. He's a big fan of power-hungry gadgets on standby - which, let's face it, doesn't help. And what's he doing about it? "Switching everything off," he told me - hmmmm, call me a sceptic but habits/lifetime/changing spring to mind.

Our reporters have travelled the world - Rajini again, to notorious high polluter India, and our US reporter Heather Alexander to check out green cars in New York - and get a 4x4 petrol head to drive one in Manhattan. We were inside the arctic circle to check on the big melt and Tulip Mazumdar went to Ireland to see how well a tax on plastic bags was working.

We did it all for journalistic reasons but we did a fair bit of polluting ourselves with all those fumes - travelling and flights. You can't win can you - so maybe politicians feel the same. But before you ask - yes, I am paying to make our reporters flights carbon neutral!

The Sun: "大象传媒 staff were quizzed by bosses yesterday after filming a spoof video of the Middle East crisis." ()

The Mirror: "The son of 大象传媒 director Alan Yentob was stabbed by muggers outside the family's home, it was revealed yesterday." ()

When we asked 大象传媒 journalists - a lot of them - what they most wanted to do for them, one answer dominated the list: "Make me more confident about the Law".

All conscientious journalists care about contempt and defamation - the journalist who puts a foot wrong in either area can find him or herself personally liable for damages, a fine or even a spell in prison. And self-interest aside, it can never be the aim of any journalist to spread an untruth or interfere with the processes of the courts.

Hence the College's recently launched legal online course for staff covering defamation and contempt - modules on copyright and contract follow next year - supplemented by face-to-face courses for all and sessions aimed at senior journalists.

But however excellent, detailed and interactive a course is, it's only the beginning. Journalists also have to become confident in applying the principles they learn, absorb and practice on the online and face-to-face courses - and as any media lawyer will tell you, all cases are different. Perhaps the most important thing for a journalist to take away from any law course is an ear more finely tuned to the alarm bell that alerts them to the need to seek expert legal advice on the specifics of their piece - to avoid being too cautious as much as too reckless.

Take an example. Last week, Raphael Rowe presented raising important questions about the scientific evidence used in the trial of Barry George, the man convicted for the murder of Jill Dando. Raphael also interviewed two of the jurors in George's trial - revealing uneasiness about the scientific evidence and suggesting that some members of the jury had ignored the trial judge's instructions not to discuss the case outside the jury room.

Those interviews will have sent many journalists scurrying to find their copy of the legal bible "McNae's Essential Law for Journalists" to confirm their - possibly vague - memory that there is a blanket ban on interviewing members of a jury; that it is a clear contempt of court.

As it happens, that's not quite the case... though as a rule of thumb, it's not a bad one; the 1981 Contempt of Court act makes it an offence to "seek or disclose information about statements made, opinions expressed, arguments advanced, or votes cast by members of a jury in the course of its deliberations". And a 1994 House of Lords ruling made it clear that the intention of the act was to keep "the secrets of the jury room inviolate". Plus, some lawyers believe that the identification of any juror is itself a contempt.

So what to do when a careful, lengthy investigation uncovers evidence that the conduct of the jury in a case might have rendered a conviction unsafe? And that evidence is voiced by the jurors themselves?

I wasn't privy to the discussions between Raphael, Panorama and the lawyers; but it's clear that the decision to broadcast the juror interviews was made in the specific context of the programme and on very precise grounds. As a humble viewer, I was able to detect no questions were put or offered concerning the deliberations in the jury room - and any conversations outside the jury room were contrary to the judge's express instructions; Raphael pointed up more than once in his script that he was aware of the legal restrictions; and, of course, the matter was one of great public interest.

The challenge for the College is to make sure that our journalists are aware of the way in which the law is applied in cases like this - and don't draw the wrong conclusions. It would be wrong, for example, to conclude from this Panorama special that interviewing jurors was now fine in all cases.

The Panorama decision also illustrates another truth about the application of the law - and another challenge for the College. In very few cases where there's a legal risk is the decision to cut or broadcast a clear one. Almost always, the editorial team has to make its decision based on the balance of risk - and since most defamation cases, for example, are settled out of court, there are often too few similar precedents to be a clear and unequivocal guide. In the end, though, it is always should be an editorial decision informed by precise legal advice.

The College can do two things; provide the knowledge that no journalist should lack through online and face-to-face courses; and second, to provide awareness of important cases and decisions. In the end, though, the most important lesson is that all cases are different and there is no substitute for detailed, specialist advice.

The Guardian: A interview with the new host of Radio 4's Broadcasting House, Paddy O'Connell. ()

The Independent: Newsnight presenter Gavin Esler pays tribute to veteran reporter Charles Wheeler. ()

As you'll know, this week's news has been dominated by one story - when will Tony Blair step down - so given the fact that the outcome of this row will have a bearing on when the country will get a new prime minister following almost ten years under Mr Blair, we thought our listeners would like the opportunity to share their views with others on The World Tonight's Listener Debate.

Much to my surprise - given the response to phone-ins and appeals for texts on other 大象传媒 networks - the response was negligible. Our listeners don't seem remotely engaged by the goings on at the top of the government. Our presenter, Robin Lustig expressed his surprise in his weekly newsletter today. The responses so far have offered a variety of explanations - it鈥檚 a manufactured story; we know Blair is going but don't know when so what's new; we know Brown wants to be PM so what's new; or people are just cynical about politicians.

All or none of these may be the reasons listeners who have responded in huge numbers to debates - on the crisis in the Middle East, civil liberties issues, and climate change among other subjects - are left unmoved by what most journalists think is the most important and interesting political story to come along in some time.

Why is this? Is it because politics is less interesting and important to people than it used to be, or is it the way we report what's going on that fails to engage people?

Since the end of the Cold War, politics in liberal democracies has appeared to have become more of a competition over who can manage the system best, rather than a struggle between competing ideologies with different visions of how societies should be organised.

It seems that many voters think it matters less which party governs and this could account for the fall in the number of people who exercise their right to vote and are actively interested in politics. The evidence in favour of this is that single issue politics can still galvanise people to join organisations and demonstrations, over such things as fair trade and globalisation, or the war in Iraq.

And when there is a real ideological choice, such as in the last French presidential election when voters had to choose between Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front and Jacques Chirac, the electorate turned out in high numbers to vote against Le Pen.

But it could also be the way we report political stories.

Journalists are essentially telling a story and like a good narrative, and drama and tension make for that. So there is a tendency to present politics as a conflict between personalities - which as we have seen this past week are undoubtedly important - as much as an argument over policies. The downside of this is that there's a danger we gloss over the complexities and nuances.

Some listeners tell us all politics is a soap opera - which it isn't always. So are we reporting politics as a soap opera, and does that account for the lack of engagement?

There are two problems with having your programme .

One is that he's a distinguished , so the defence of muttering "what would he know about news programmes anyway" is unavailable.

The other is that he is a pre-eminent prose stylist whose polemics are laced with cutting phrases - in this case describing the Six O'clock News as a "parody of something between Down Your Way and Nationwide".

His ire had been raised by our decision to send Natasha Kaplinsky out for a week to places ranging from Dorset to Glasgow to present a series of segments on social change under the banner "The Changing Face of Britain" - you can watch some of the reports by clicking here.

He took up his pen after watching the first, in which we went to Christchurch in Dorset, the town with the most elderly population in Britain, to report on what might be the future for many other parts of the country. The segment contained a report from Richard Bilton, a piece by Natasha looking at what the town was like decades ago and an interview with the 71 year old Mayor of the town about what it was like to live there.

Now I would be the first to admit that this wasn't the strongest of the five stories we covered in Six on Tour - and if I'm honest the interview with the Mayor was a bit too local in content - but there is a more general point that Martin Bell was making. Should we be out in this way - sending a presenter to cover the growing elderly population (or the exodus of young people from Wales, Polish immigrants doing the jobs Asians used to do in the Midlands, town dwellers moving to the country, and Glasgow's record in dealing with asylum seekers as we did on the other days) in this way, when there are people dying in Afghanistan, Iraq and, on Monday, a British tourist shot in Jordan.

Of course we did cover events in the Middle East well ahead of Six on Tour. But his question remains valid - why did we devote eight minutes a night to being on the road like this? There are a number of answers I would give. Principal among them I would say that the issues we covered were important and that they sometimes get lost in among the more urgent daily stories.

But we did have a wider purpose than that - to get our programme out among some of the audiences we serve to report on things that were happening locally, but had some greater national resonance. Our reporters and Natasha also appeared in the local newspapers and on local media, providing more potential viewers with a reminder of the service we offer. And our overnight research showed that our report on the elderly was the programme item people most wanted to know more about.

As a man with a full 大象传媒 career behind him, who looks set to continue using his talents for many years to come, I might have hoped Martin Bell himself would have agreed with that.

There's always been a debate about what is and isn't acceptable on TV news programmes, and now that we have blogs, forums and podcasts it's only getting more complicated. And should Newsnight's on-line persona be exactly the same as that on TV? Here are a few of this week's posers.

鈥� Our Ethical Man Justin Rowlatt caused a degree of outrage when, in a film about cycling proficiency (watch it here), he asked a youngster if he was "pissed off". By today's standards that's hardly obscene and I'm sure the minor in question had heard, and probably said, much worse, but I must admit I spluttered into my cocoa watching at home.

On the other hand, when I used the term "crap prizes" in a response on this blog, I was surprised that some viewers thought that was inappropriate language for the editor of Newsnight, even in an obscure corner of the blogosphere.

鈥� A few of you have been writing on the blog complaining that some of your comments have been censored and asking why. In short, I don't know. On Newsnight, we censor nothing that appears on the site, but we do employ an outside moderating company who check for, among other things, "profane, abusive or threatening language" (full guidelines here).

So, in response to a question about graffiti scrawled on his abandoned car, the foul-mouthed Justin's strictly factual response was barred from publication. I'm not going to repeat it here, but it begins with "w".

鈥� Where does informality end and falling standards begin? Yesterday on the website, we asked you - as a diverting pastime while we waited for Mr Blair - to construct a statement which might get the PM off the hook. About 300 hundred of you obliged, but one bridled: "I find this exercise pretty stupid for the level that 大象传媒 and Newsnight traditionally were holding and still claim to hold."

鈥� I enjoyed the fact that when Laura Kuenssberg said that Jack Straw had been talking in the past tense some of you pulled her up, pointing out he was actually talking in the present perfect (the operative phrase was "has been"). Then again - as some of you have also raised - the standard of spelling and grammar among viewers' contributions to the blog is sometimes pretty appalling. Not what we would expect from Newsnight viewers.

鈥� Two quick ones which raised eyebrows inside and outside the programme. Tony Blair portrayed as Christ at the Last Supper as an illustration of . Blasphemy or genius? And what about Kirsty's description of Gordon Brown's command and control network as Al-Qaeda-like? One of our own programme editors thought that was appalling.

This week while we hacks have been revelling in one of the most dramatic political stories in years a vocal section of our audience has taken a different view.

Even on Radio Four, where listeners normally have a high threshold for political news, there have been complaints. Here's an eloquent example:

"That's it! 8.18 am and I have just switched John Humphrys off (again) and tuned into Radio 1 (and I'm nearly 60!). This inane drivel that broadcasters (like you) are peddling, with your opinions based on tittle-tattle as though it were fact has now sunk even beneath the level of the Daily Mail. I thank God that at least I can turn you off; that I don't live anywhere near the M25 ghetto that is generating all this crap; that you are not one of my neighbours; that I won't be meeting ANY of you in the pub, on a walk in the hills, or at a dinner party this weekend. For goodness' sake GIVE IT A REST."

This sort of view demonstrates an unusual dissonance between the journalists and some of those they serve. Normally when listeners complain, whether you agree or disagree with the complaint, you can understand why they are doing it.

On this story journalists in the PM office just look puzzled and bemused when confronted by such views. For us it's an utterly compelling piece of political drama. It's the battle over who is going to be in charge of the country played out on the airwaves. Some say we should concentrate on policies, but policies are less relevant if the person putting them forward will not be in a position to carry them out.

So overall I think it's ridiculous to suggest we are all too obsessed. It's also wrong to say it's only a story inside the 'Westminster bubble'. I visited a friend in the Cotswolds this week and was struck how even the sheep seemed to be worried about the prime minster's future. If you listen carefully they are definitely saying 'Blair'....'Blair'.... 'Blair'.

A guide to words and names in the news from Catherine Sangster of the 大象传媒 Pronunciation Unit.

"Today's pronunciation is the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru, in the news because of . The pronunciation is MATCH-oo PEEK-choo."

鈥� From Monday, this guide will become part of the Magazine Monitor, which can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/magazine.

The Guardian: An interview with 大象传媒 news presenter George Alagiah. ()

The Daily Telegraph: Obituary for former controller of Radio 3 and director of the 大象传媒 Proms, Sir John Drummond. ()

A guide to words and names in the news, from Catherine Sangster of the 大象传媒 Pronunciation Unit.

"Today's pronunciation is the drug for which sprinter Marion Jones has now tested negative - erythropoietin. The pronunciation we recommend, based on various published sources, is err-ith-roh-POY-uh-tin."

I can鈥檛 take credit for first hiring a tabloid newspaper editor to present 大象传媒 output.

My colleague John Clayton at Radio Lancashire did that; Tony Livesey, the former editor of the Daily Sport, has been presenting the Breakfast show there (very successfully) for the last 15 months.

So to hire him to present North West Tonight鈥檚 sports desk twice a week was not the courageous move it might appear. He had form. (Watch his debut performance here.)

However, it naturally raised a few eyebrows 鈥� you can鈥檛 gloss over the fact that Tony did edit a newspaper primarily interested in sex and alien stories. However he doesn鈥檛 edit it anymore and he is a very experienced journalist, who began his career as a sports reporter.

What really sells him as a sports presenter though is his love of sport, a genuine fan who congratulates himself on being Burnley FCs fourth most famous supporter.

It鈥檚 that and his very un-presenter-like manner. Tony doesn鈥檛 interview people, he chats to them. It鈥檚 a simple difference which has proved very disarming.

Freddie Flintoff got on famously with him, one football manager was happy to natter away at a bus stop while he waited for the team coach. And he鈥檚 currently in Latvia having a chinwag with the Russian billionaire who鈥檚 bought Blackpool FC 鈥� watch on Friday to discover some truly startling revelations from that interview.

So what鈥檚 he like? Not some scary amalgam of Kelvin McKenzie and Piers Morgan that鈥檚 for sure. Tony is quietly spoken, self-deprecating, desperate to learn and terminally scruffy.
In fact we鈥檝e had no complaints yet about his association with boobs and bad headlines, just e-mails decrying his beard and bad haircut.

It鈥檚 early days yet but I believe Tony will charm the North West Tonight viewers in the same way he鈥檚 charmed the Radio Lancashire listeners. And that he鈥檒l bring a refreshing fans-eye view to our sports journalism. I may have to introduce him to a razor though.

Daily Telegraph: Charles Kennedy has been asked to present a 大象传媒 Scotland programme on the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union. ()

The Guardian: A mini-series made by US network ABC and due to be broadcast on 大象传媒 Two on Sunday, The Road to 9/11, has come under fire for blaming the Clinton administration for failing to capture Osama bin Laden. ()

Daily Mail: Michael Parkinson calls for more intelligent women to be given plum jobs on TV.(No link)

Daily Telegraph: Obituary for 大象传媒 presenter Anne Gregg. ()

There was a feeding frenzy in the Westminster newsroom yesterday. As word came through of - I think - the fourth letter of the day to Downing Street telling Blair he had to go/stay/speak out/stay quiet (delete as appropriate), Jon Devitt found a mouse in his drawers.

Jon's distinguished career has taken him to Bosnia, Iraq, Kosovo and all sorts of other hotspots. For many years now he's been based in the relative calm of Millbank, where he鈥檚 deftly explained politics to World TV and World Service audiences around the globe. But he's never experienced anything quite like this.

At approximately half past four, he just couldn鈥檛 resist any longer that bar of duty-free chocolate he'd been saving from his holiday in Spain. So he reached down to the back of his drawer, only to discover that - horror of horrors 鈥� his prized bar had been nibbled almost to nothing. Feeding frenzy or what鈥�.Little Milly had even chewed his earpiece!

Uproar ensued. His producer wanted him on air decoding the work of the Downing Street postman. But Jon wasn't having any of that; he wanted immediate action from Millbank's Chief Mouse-catcher (me).

This was perhaps the wackiest moment of a wacky day. At times I felt like an extra in the Monty Python film, The Life of Brian. ("That latest letter - is that from the Popular Front of Judea, or the Judean Popular Front?")

Disentangling the Blairites-for-Brown from the 2001 Intake from the Usual Suspects is a tough business, particularly when most of them aren鈥檛 prepared to pick up the phone.

Just 24 hours earlier I鈥檇 sat in a meeting with Nick Robinson, his producers, and the senior newsdesk editors at Westminster. We鈥檇 all been scratching our heads about how to take on the Blair story. Some fantastic ideas were bandied about, but we were worried about finding a 鈥減eg鈥� for them to justify us doing the story on an important TV bulletin.

Yesterday was the antidote to all those worries. It became clear for all to see that really serious stuff is going on, mostly behind closed doors, but occasionally bursting out like a lanced boil. And it鈥檚 not just about the exact date when Tony Blair will pack his bags, it鈥檚 about the future direction of the government on issues that matter to everyone like crime, health, and energy.

So memo to self: don鈥檛 be shy of finding interesting and engaging ways to cover this running story, even when we fear there鈥檚 a danger of boring people.

But back to the important business of the day - Milly the mouse escaped. Jon Devitt and his colleagues up the end of the newsroom want a date NOW for his departure from Millbank. The mouse is silently defiant: reliable sources say he wants to go on and on, at least through to next summer. Who will win in this titanic struggle?

A guide to names and words in the news from Catherine Sangster of the 大象传媒 Pronunciation Unit.

"Today's news pronunciation is Omagh, pronounced OH-muh with the stress on the first syllable. The trial of a man charged with carrying out the car-bombing in that town in 1998 ."

The Guardian: "Former 大象传媒 foreign correspondent-turned-politician Martin Bell has attacked the corporation's Six O'Clock News." ()

The Mirror: "The 大象传媒 should give police any evidence that clears Barry George of killing Jill Dando, his Irish family said yesterday." (no link available)

When you invite print journalists to an advance viewing of a film, you're not really expecting a round of applause. On the other hand you don't anticipate the programme being roundly abused. Yet that's what happened at yesterday's preview of Raphael Rowe's Panorama investigation Jill Dando's Murder: The New Evidence.

The programme is a meticulous and thorough re-examination of the evidence that convicted Barry George - the oddball who police and prosecution believe was responsible for the appalling murder of our colleague.

It wasn't an easy film for the 大象传媒 to commission, but Raph and producer Kristin Hadland have come up with many new and pertinent facts that could affect the safety of the conviction. Notably a new forensic report suggests the 'firearms discharge residue' particle found in Barry George's pocket in all probability comes from a source other than a gun and doesn't connect Barry George to the crime; and new evidence that the jury ignored some of the judge's instructions by discussing aspects of the case in their hotel when some of the jury members were not present.

This, and a host of other new facts contained in the programme, will be forwarded to the Criminal Cases Review Commission by Barry George's defence team - who believe this should lead to the case being referred back to the Court of Appeal.

By and large the assembled hacks weren't interested and, despite the evidence to the contrary, claimed there was nothing new in the film. Then they tried to argue that the 大象传媒 was trying to whitewash Barry George's criminal past. Again this simply wasn't true. The film doesn't duck the fact that he was an oddball, a threat to women, with convictions for indecent assault and attempted rape and that he had an interest in guns.

So the pack then took the line that Raphael was an inappropriate person to investigate this story. It's no secret that Raphael was himself a victim of a miscarriage of justice - serving 12 years before his own conviction was overturned at the Court of Appeal. Raphael explained how his own experience had given him a special interest in the criminal justice system, but this didn't mean he compromised the 大象传媒's normal standards of accuracy and impartiality. But looking at some of today's newspaper coverage he might as well have whistled in the wind: the Daily Mail had "Criminal past of man behind 大象传媒's Dando revelations", and the Telegraph had "大象传媒 defends use of freed prisoner to challenge Dando ruling".

You'll have to judge for yourself who's right and wrong. For my part I think Raphael, Kristin and the rest of the team have produced a valuable piece of work. At no point do they claim that Barry George is definitely innocent - simply that the jury did not hear all the relevant evidence. If they had, who can say for sure they would have reached the same verdict.

A guide to names and words in the news from Catherine Sangster of the 大象传媒 Pronunciation Unit.

"Today's pronunciation is the for Chechnya, which we researched by consulting the 大象传媒 World Service Central Asian and Caucasus Service. NOKHCHIYN or NOKHCHIIN is pronounced nokh-CHEEN (kh as in loch, ch as in church)."

In America, the Labor Day holiday has been and gone, marking the end of the summer. According to the etiquette of a bygone era, white shoes and gloves should no longer be worn in polite society until next May.

But as Washington鈥檚 political elite return to their desks after a summer at the beach, the gloves are coming off for a different reason. Serious campaigning starts now for the November 7 mid-term elections.

In the mid-terms, the entire House of Representatives, a third of the nation鈥檚 senatorships and 36 of the 50 state governorships are up for grabs. President Bush鈥檚 name is not on any ballot, but these elections are nevertheless a litmus test of his popularity.

His current ratings are near rock-bottom, so canny Republicans are wary of close association and Democrats scent blood. But it鈥檚 not all plain sailing for the opposition either 鈥� it鈥檒l be tough for the Democratic Party to gain control in either House of Congress. A close fight is in prospect.

It鈥檚 a blessing to see the American media drifting back to a serious news agenda after a very silly summer season indeed. Despite bloody upheaval in the Middle East, most news editors have opted for much lighter fare 鈥� new developments in a lurid and unsolved case of a child beauty queen鈥檚 murder, the arrest of a polygamous religious sect leader and the breathless tracking of a hurricane which blew itself out even before reaching the US coast.

Although I may eat my words when, as November approaches, we find ourselves neck deep in campaign ads, shrill political lobbying and the braying tones of an American political campaign in full flow. I may find a new attraction for weather stories.

The Telegraph: "The 大象传媒 has defended its decision to use a former prisoner to make a documentary that questions the conviction of Jill Dando's killer". ()

The Guardian: An obituary of 大象传媒 journalist Michael Vestey. ()

As you may have read elsewhere on this blog, my colleague Adrian Brown wrote about the World Tonight's staging of a war crimes trial over the recent conflict in Lebanon last Friday. Both the Israelis and Hezbollah had been accused of breaking humanitarian law by senior UN officials and the respected pressure group, Human Rights Watch.

We asked our listeners to be the jury and send us their verdict, and we announced the verdict last Friday; a little more than half say the Israeli Defence Force committed war crimes and just under half say Hezbollah are also guilty. But the debate goes on and the e-mails are still coming in - though the proportions have not altered substantially.

Unlike some other online debates we did not ask for a simple guilty/not guilty vote as we wanted to get a sense of the thinking that led our listeners to reach their verdicts, which make really interesting reading.

It was an experiment, and although we, the 大象传媒, were not making the cases - we left that to the executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth - we did get some criticism for it. But the level and quality of the defence mounted on the programme and the e-mails we have received since, I think, made it - on balance - a successful experiment.

Financial Times: "The 大象传媒 is coming under increasing pressure from opposition parties and commercial rivals to publish a revised licence fee bid." ()

Sunday Times: "A veteran war correspondent has turned his fire on 大象传媒 television and radio broadcasters for delivering their reports like robots." ()

The case of the Stornaway schoolgirl Molly Campbell highlighted discussion about "arranged marriages" and "forced marriages". There are very important differences between the two; they are not alternatives.

Arranged marriages have a long and successful history in this country and elsewhere. I am sure I read figures that suggested the divorce rate among couples whose marriage had been arranged by a third party (usually their families) was lower than those of couples who fended for themselves, so to speak.

Forced marriages are completely different. By their very nature they involve compulsion of at least one - if not both - of the people involved as well physical threats and intimidation. They could well be the subject of serious criminal charges, such as rape.

It is no minor matter to confuse the two.

The with her father to go to Pakistan has raised a number of difficult issues about the way we have covered it - and led to a number of discussions at our editorial meetings.

Initially, the story seemed pretty clear: a schoolgirl abducted by her father in defiance of a court order. Her emotional mother and grandmother - and the police - asking for her return and some of her family raising the fear of an arranged marriage. This latter line was picked up heavily by many parts of the media. It became apparent the next day that the story was quite different and more complicated than that.

I think we now feel that we probably didn't show enough sophistication in covering the story on the first day. We accepted on face value the words of Molly's mother and her grandmother. However, I don't think in hindsight that we should necessarily have accepted this so readily and we should have tried to find out more about the father and the family as the day went on. I also think that is particularly the case in that some of the suggestions reinforced some stereotypes.

As more facts came out over the next couple of days, we have strived to be as fair and accurate as we can in reflecting all sides. We carried the press conference by Molly and her father - indicating that it was Molly's wish to go to Pakistan. We have interviewed friends of the father before that to put his point of view. Hopefully we have now given the best all-round picture we can of a complicated and sad story.

One other point that has arisen is the personal nature of some of the comments made at the press conference today by Molly's brother about members of his family. As the story was unfolding, we carried this press conference live on News 24. As sometimes happens, live events can turn up unexpected and unfortunate comments. His words underlined how difficult it is for us to tread the line of reporting stories of wide public interest when they could trespass on private family emotions. It is something we try to avoid as far as is possible - and we won't be repeating the personal comments or re-running those parts of the press conference on News 24.

Putting Israel on trial for war crimes is not something one does lightly. But that's what The World Tonight decided to do last week. Not Israel alone, mind you. Hezbollah was in the dock too - both of them for allegedly committing war crimes during the recent Lebanon conflict. And I should clarify, we were simply hosting the trial.

This was not the 大象传媒 putting either side on trial. We left that to Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch whose organisation had recently released a detailed report accusing both sides of committing war crimes. Defending Israel was Daniel Reisner, a former legal advisor to the Israeli army. International Law Professor John Quigley took the Hezbollah brief. Friday's presenter Paul Moss was judge. Our listeners were the jury. (You can hear the debate here.)

To keep order in court we allowed Roth two minutes to make the case against each defendant who then had two minutes each to offer a defence against the "charges". Roth then cross-examined both defendants.

To end we gave each of the participants a final say. It was a fascinating contest which thanks to Ken Roth's surgical cross examination really cut to the core issues of what is, and is not, legally permissible in times of war.

A stunt or useful contribution to the 大象传媒's coverage of the conflict? Judging by the torrent of e-mails we received, I'd say this was a resounding success. Here's a typical response:

"Thank-you for the concise and objective debate to-night on the war in Lebanon. It was refreshing to see both points argued sensibly and logically. In my opinion, both sides are guilty of war crimes."

Using the device of the court hearing opened up the debate in ways that a straightforward interview wouldn't. Thanks also to the time constraints imposed there was real drama as Roth's prosecution demolished in large parts both defendants' cases.

And the verdict? The jury is still out as the e-mails continue to come in, though there are currently marginally more who think Israel is guilty than Hezbollah. Our listeners' final verdict will be announced on tonight's programme.

A guide to names and words in the news from Martha Figueroa-Clark of the 大象传媒 Pronunciation Unit.

"Today's pronunciation is Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad al-Siniora (variously spelt). Our recommendation is based on the advice of the 大象传媒 Arabic Service: foo-AD uh-suhn-YOO-ruh (-oo as in boot; -uh as in the). The L in the article 'al' turns into an S before the first letter of the surname which is a so-called sun letter."

Which item on Newsnight over the past week has generated the most press enquiries?

Was it Susan Watts' ? Many anxious viewers suffering from MS and other incurable conditions contacted us after that one, but there were just a couple of press calls. Was it our series on the , which this week featured the revolution in education in Qatar, where the female teachers wear the full veil? No, although you can read about the series in this week's and next Monday in the .

What really got the press going this week was last Friday's encounter between Emily Maitlis and the Health Minister Caroline Flint. The interview was about the parlous state of the NHS's computer systems involving the troubled company iSoft.

It was a good story, but it wasn't that which interested the press pack. Ms Flint was doing her interview down the line from a camera in the 大象传媒 Sheffield newsroom. As she spoke a woman wove casually past in the background, as people often do in newsroom shots. She was carrying a full tray of teas. Not unusual. Balanced on her head. (Watch it here.)

The press office phones went mad. Who was the mysterious woman with the deft tea-tray skills? I rang our colleagues at Radio Sheffield who told me she's the lady who tidies up the office in the evenings. She's been getting the teas in like this for years. No-one there bats an eyelid.

"Did I want a word?" You bet. So, for all those inquisitive hacks out there I can reveal that our head-carrying heroine is Nana Amoatin, originally from Ghana. "It's not that difficult", says Nana, "anyone could do it".

Daily Mirror: C大象传媒 programme Lazy Town credited with persuading children to eat healthily. ()
Daily Telegraph: 大象传媒 and Five might be priced out of showing Ashes highlights by Sky. ()
The Guardian: Another diary item on the 'Newsnight tray carrier'. ()