- Kevin Bakhurst
- 6 Nov 06, 05:29 PM
News 24's rolling coverage of the Saddam verdict on Sunday morning attracted big audiences, hitting a peak of well over 6% of all viewers.
It's not always easy to judge the appetite for big international stories but looking at our audience numbers and the huge number of hits for the 大象传媒 News website, this was one of those that people really wanted to see.
We had our world affairs editor, John Simpson, in court to witness events as they happened and Andrew North was in central Baghdad to describe reaction. The deployment underlined the 大象传媒's commitment to the reporting of Iraq despite the obvious dangers of doing so and contrasts with some of our competitors who didn't feel this was a significant enough event to send a correspondent to Iraq.
大象传媒 News 24 has benefited from the 大象传媒's commitment to having a correspondent - Andrew North - resident in Baghdad throughout the year: a decision that has helped us to give day-to-day coverage of one of the world's biggest stories as it unfolds. It represents a very significant proportion of the 大象传媒's weekly world news coverage budget but we feel it is a story we have to cover well and in depth. The challenge in the next few weeks will be reporting on the fallout from Sunday's verdict, the various viewpoints on the judicial process and the death penalty, and how we cover the execution itself - if it happens.
Kevin Bakhurst is controller of 大象传媒 News
- Amanda Farnsworth
- 6 Nov 06, 03:53 PM
Thanks to those of you who commented on my blog about our climate change coverage - some interesting views. I thought you might all be interested in the results of a poll by the Daily Politics programme on our willingness to pay green taxes.
It's a somewhat more mixed result - and a poll is only a poll - than I had thought. People do seem willing to pay IF they can be sure the government is going to tax in the right way and at the moment they don't seem to trust this will be the case. Anyway here are the results.
The government has published a report showing that climate change could have a very significant impact on the world economy unless action is taken now to reduce carbon emissions. Please say whether you agree or disagree with each of the following statements:
1) The government should impose higher taxes on activities that cause pollution, even if that means the end of cheap flights and driving a car becomes more expensive. Agree 53% Disagree 45%.
2) 'Green taxes' will unfairly hit poorer people, while rich people will be able to continue to drive and fly just as much as before. Agree 69% Disagree 28%.
3) 'Green taxes' are not really about helping the environment; they are just designed to provide more revenue for the Government. Agree 62% Disagree 33%.
4) There's not much point in doing my bit for the environment because Britain accounts for only 2% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. Agree 33% Disagree 64%.
You can find more details (it's a PDF file).
Amanda Farnsworth is editor of Inside Sport.
On this week's Newswatch, the programme which discusses viewers' complaints about 大象传媒 News, Newsnight editor Peter Barron debates David Loyn's interview with the Taleban, and there's a report about the use of . You can watch it here.
An semi-regular feature where we round-up blog comments on matters relating to the 大象传媒. Today - Newsnight's recent interview with Madonna (discussed on this blog here and here).
Stressqueen: "It felt positively surreal and utterly ridiculous to see Jeremy Paxman discussing Madonna's adoption of a Malawian orphan on Newsnight." ()
Adventures in engineering: "Newsnight鈥檚 decision to have Kirsty Wark interview Madonna, for example, is coming perilously close to being entertainment." ()
Bill's comment page: "What is the stage set all about? Is this whole thing not an enormous fire risk?" ()
Potunkey: "I was under the clearly mistaken impression that responsible journalism didn鈥檛 involve getting the subjects of interviews to dance." ()
Adrian Monck online: "The truth is there are good ways to put on audience, and then there's doing a Madonna interview." ()
The Independent: Extended interview with 大象传媒 News presenter Ben Brown. ()
The Times: Reports that the historic former 大象传媒 studios at London's Alexandra Palace could soon be demolished. ()
New Statesman: Peter Wilby comments on the recent row over 大象传媒 impartiality - "The proposal that the 大象传媒 should echo some notional consensus of demotic opinion is a fairly recent one". ()
