The Editors

• Sandy Smith
• 12 Feb 09, 10:07 AM

Yesterday the Omagh families met Prime Minister Gordon Brown at No 10 to discuss the outcome of an inquiry into Panorama's revelations that GCHQ were recording mobile phone exchanges between the Omagh bombers on the day of the attack.

The report by the Intelligence Services Commissioner Sir Peter Gibson had been ordered by Mr Brown and was published last month.

Panorama's September 2008 programme, Omagh: What The Police Were Never Told, disclosed that GCHQ had monitored up to five mobile phones used by some members of the bomb gang during the 100 minute bomb run from the Irish Republic to Omagh, but that the detectives trying to identify the bombers were never told this, even though they were desperate for leads.

None of the perpetrators have been convicted of the bombing, which killed 29 people, two unborn babies and injured 250 people on 15 August 1998, despite promises from the-then Prime Minister Tony Blair that no stone would be left unturned in the hunt to bring the culprits to justice.

However, although appearing to confirm many aspects of the programme, Sir Peter avoided holding any branch of the intelligence services to account for the fact that the detectives were never told that intercepts existed and that the telephone numbers of some of the bombers were known.

Sir Peter also criticised Panorama for making "allegations" that the bombing could have been prevented.

In fact the programme made no such allegation. Rather, we asked whether the bombing could have been prevented - a question we now consider even more justified by Sir Peter's failure to challenge our central claim: that GCHQ was listening to the mobiles of some of the bombers while the bomb was being driven to Omagh.

The Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward told Parliament Sir Peter's review was "exhaustive" and "comprehensive".

Today Panorama publishes a detailed response to Sir Peter's criticisms of Panorama and highlights the many questions we say it it fails to answer. Readers can judge for themselves whether they consider Mr Woodward's comments are merited.

Even to this day detectives have never been officially told about the phone monitoring.

The families say they want to know why neither Sir Peter nor the Northern Ireland Secretary have had anything to say about the GCHQ policy in place in 1998 that appears to have prevented even one telephone number being passed to detectives to get them going even though 29 people lay dead.

Sir Peter comments only on the "cautious way" Special Branch shared intelligence with the CID.

He just says it was not part of his remit to investigate the reasons for their "caution" but he "does not doubt" there were "good operational reasons" for it.

Sir Peter says the Branch could have asked GCHQ for "material that might have existed" to disseminate to the CID, but that "the record shows no such request was made".

The Omagh relatives consider this to be his single most extraordinary comment.

They ask if any reasonable person would seriously consider that the entire intelligence gathering apparatus of Northern Ireland would need to be specifically asked to collect intelligence to help identify those responsible for the single worst atrocity of the Northern Ireland conflict?

While Mr Woodward thinks Sir Peter's work was "exhaustive", some senior officers John Ware has spoken to beg to differ: "Gibson has surface skated" said one, adding that he had been "appointed to close the curtain on Omagh".

You can read Panorama's detailed response and make your own mind up.

Sandy Smith is editor of Panorama.

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• Rod McKenzie
• 11 Feb 09, 10:20 AM

It's a depressingly familiar scene. Police at a family's doorstep; a woman inside, tearful, bloodied and bruised; the officers were called because she was being attacked by her partner - now she won't, or can't, take the matter further and press charges.

Shocking - but perhaps not surprising. We know it happens often. But what if the victim in such a case was a man - a young man?

New statistics suggest that men in their early 20s are MORE likely to be abused by their partner than women the same age. It's not a subject that's much talked about. On Newsbeat, we're changing that.

The official definition of partner abuse includes non-physical forms like emotional bullying as well as physical force. But men in this age range have been on the receiving end of all forms, including sometimes severe violence.

Across most age ranges more women are abused than men. But analysis of the latest figures from the Home Office shows the problem is more evenly spread between the sexes in the early stages of a young relationship

So why are men in this age at such risk? Are 20-something women becoming more aggressive? Are men less able to defend themselves? And is this a taboo that's now being talked about for the first time?

Our journalism started with a piece on Radio 1 from our special reporter Jim Reed. 5Live's phone-in with Nicky Campbell picked up the story also.

Mark Brooks from the men's health charity Mankind reckons the issue of male domestic abuse is often ignored by the government, social services and the police. There simply isn't enough help available for men, he says.

Reporting the crime carries risks too. Some men clearly feel that telling police can lead to the finger of blame being pointed at them. One, who wants to stay anonymous, texted us to say "ex girlfriend pushed me down the stairs ,i called the police and they locked me up for three hours and made me walk home with dislocated toes cos they did not believe me". Others say they were threatened with assault charges - even though they were the victim.

The response from the Radio 1 audience appears to fit the stats, too: "She knocked me to the ground and then started punching, kicking and biting me." Another one told us: "My ex broke my arm with a metal pole ... when the police came round, I ended up being arrested."

And perhaps most movingly: "My dad was stabbed to death by his girlfriend in a drunken unprovoked attack. She had been attacking him randomly for months. He would never talk to us about it but we knew she had a violent temper. He was a wonderful dad and we miss him every day. More should be done to encourage men to report domestic abuse."

Covering this subject has provoked a flood of stories and experiences - and from many a desire for something to be done to help young male victims. We're now following this up with a full length documentary - coming soon on 1Xtra.

Rod McKenzie is editor of Newsbeat and 1Xtra News

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• Mike Rudin
• 9 Feb 09, 11:19 AM

We have "constructed one of the most extensive and technologically advanced surveillance systems in the world". That was the stark conclusion of Friday's report by the House of Lords Constitution Committee, "Surveillance: Citizens and the State".

BBC special correspondent Richard Bilton has been taking a journey through our surveillance society for a new BBC2 series called "Who's Watching You?", which will be broadcast this spring. He's been meeting both the watchers and the watched.

Cheaper and more advanced technology has prompted a massive expansion in surveillance - not just through CCTV, listening devices, tracking, but also through all the personal data that's collected on every one of us.

As the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas says, we leave an "electronic footprint" behind us almost wherever we go - with every click of the mouse, every phone call, every time we use a credit card. And that information just grows and grows, allowing a more and more detailed and intrusive picture to be constructed of how we each live our lives.

The paradox is that there is a great deal of support for things like CCTV. We all benefit from better crime detection and from easier and cheaper services. But we know surprisingly little about the depth and breadth of modern surveillance, or about the potential problems when things go wrong.

Wherever we went, we were told: "If you've got nothing to hide, then you've got nothing to fear." But when we looked further, we found people who had suffered from the loss of personal data, and ordinary people who are watched every minute of the day at work and even at home.

Pressure groups like Liberty, Privacy International and NO2ID have long warned of the dangers to personal privacy. But even the word privacy is hard to define and hard to relate to.

What we have found throughout making the series, almost whatever the type of surveillance, is that regulation is all too often an after-thought and sometimes non-existent.

Take CCTV for example. The Lords committee's report makes clear that "there are few restrictions on the use of public area CCTV cameras in the UK".

The government has already announced consultations on creating a new "super-database" to record the fact (but not the content) of every email, phone call and internet use, and also on the use of covert surveillance by local authorities; and it is due to reveal how it will come into line with a recent European Court of Human Rights ruling that our present DNA database has been in breach of the right to privacy.

"Who's Watching You?" will examine how surveillance is now becoming all pervasive but how little we understand it.

Mike Rudin, series producer of Who's Watching You and The Conspiracy Files

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• Richard Chapman
• 4 Feb 09, 12:00 PM

As I commented on this blog yesterday, like many other commuters I too have had to endure this week's snowfall. While we can't improve the British weather, we have now done everything we can to improve your BBC weather website.

BBC Weather has always used developments in technology to improve the quality of its output, dovetailing improvements in forecasting techniques with new and emerging broadcast platforms.

On my first day at the BBC Weather Centre the output was focused mainly on forecasts on television. Today the Weather Centre is a fully multi-media operation with over 100 broadcasts a day, presented by a weather team of 22, on TV, radio, online and the red button.

It wasn't until 1998 that the first version of the weather website went live, and it was a very different looking site from the version that is available from today. We have had a couple of site refreshes over the last decade but nothing on the scale of today's offering.

Firstly, we have made changes to the technology driving the website which will mean that we can support the service far more effectively, 24 hours a day. Technology has developed to such an extent that what was thought cutting edge five years ago is in fact old technology today. We have improved the infrastructure and streamlined our processes, which will mean more and faster updates throughout the day.

Secondly, we have been asking you what you would like, and having reviewed that feedback, we have been able to provide what we believe to be a world class weather website. Through the site we will deliver the latest and most comprehensive forecast available for wherever you want, whenever you want it, all in one place.

So I guess you are asking what has changed?

The two biggest changes are the structure of the site and the visual design. All of our forecast information is now organised by location rather than by type of data. Once you have searched for your location you will find everything you need on one page, a one-stop shop for wherever you choose to be. The visual design now follows the broadcast design, so the colour of the pages reflects the weather forecast for the location you are looking at.

Today's forecasts for UK locations on the weather site are no longer depicted by one summary symbol. Today is now covered by a three-hourly breakdown to show more clearly how the weather will change over the 24 hours to come. We have also increased the frequency with which we receive forecasts from the Met Office.

Each location page displays the accompanying weather map, but you can also navigate to other map areas without leaving your page. This means you can choose a different or wider area map if you prefer.

Our forecast information is displayed in individual modules on a page, and these can be expanded or collapsed depending on whether you are interested in the information or not. We are also making the video we produce more accessible by embedding it on our pages, still presented by your familiar BBC broadcast meteorologists and updated throughout the day.

Our website is now wider. The BBC has received feedback from you about making the best use of available screen space. We're confident that now is the right time to use the extra space to improve the site. The flatter structure of the site will make it easier to navigate.

The process will be completed over the coming months as we migrate a number of pages from the old site to the new. We will also be looking at how we can develop new ways of getting our weather content online and available whenever you want it.

UPDATE 1415: Earlier today we launched the new BBC Weather website. Unfortunately shortly after midday we experienced major technical issues. As a result we've had to roll back to the old weather site.

We are urgently trying to understand what happened and hope to be in a position to clarify the situation later today.

The old version of the site will continue to be updated as normal so you can still access the very latest forecast from the BBC Weather team. Apologies if you've come to view the new site, but we are doing our best to resolve the issues and hope to unveil the new site shortly.

Richard Chapman is editorial manager of BBC Weather

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• Richard Chapman
• 3 Feb 09, 03:17 PM

Like many commuters I spent the first part of Monday morning standing at the station despite the warnings, believing that a miracle might happen and my train might still arrive to take me on the daily trip to London.

Watching the weather output and talking to colleagues who made it into the office, it was clear that we were experiencing an unusual event. Despite the statements that it was the worst snowfall in south-east England for 18 years, it was not until this morning that I realised the magnitude of snow that had fallen.

On my journey from the Kent coast the amount of snow lying just increased and got deeper up until the point where the tracks were not visible on the lines that had not been cleared.

Yesterday many comparisons were made with other European countries, who despite their prolonged winters and heavy snowfall continue to run their public transport and go to work. I assume that if we too experienced these extreme conditions regularly they would become the "norm" and we would cope far better.

The forecasts from the BBC Weather Centre at the end of last week contained early mentions of the potential for snowfall this week. Special graphics were commissioned as "attention getters" to make sure that the potential for snow was presented clearly. As the forecast became more certain across the weekend, the graphics were used extensively as the extent of the snowfall became evident.

The Weather Centre today is a hive of activity, with everyone feeling the effects of the busy day yesterday. Ice is still a potential problem in many areas as snow melts during the day and freezes overnight (temperatures in some rural areas fell to -8C last night).

On top of this we are watching the forecast closely. I spoke to Matt Taylor, BBC broadcast meteorologist, earlier about the outlook. He said that the wintry weather would last until the weekend and some parts of the country would see further snowfall leading to disruption.

It is definitely worth keeping in touch with the forecast on television, radio and online, as we have clearly not seen the end to this particular spell of cold weather yet.

Richard Chapman is editorial manager of BBC Weather

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• Peter Horrocks
• 3 Feb 09, 12:57 PM

BBC News audiences helped us out with reporting the news in record numbers on Monday.

Over 35,000 people sent us stills and video of the heavy snow across much of the UK. This was a record both for the sheer number of pictures and almost certainly for the size of the audience response to a news event in the UK.

As well as sending us your pictures, audiences watched and read a lot of BBC News.

About 8.2 million unique users came to the BBC News website, of whom 5.1 million were from the UK - also a record. The BBC News channel, no doubt boosted by huge numbers of people taking an enforced day off work, had a peak audience of 557,000, compared with Sky's peak of 300,000. The BBC News channel's average share across the day was 1.82 per cent, compared with Sky's 0.90 per cent. And there were 195,000 plays of the BBC News channel live on the BBC website.

The BBC1 news programmes were also avidly watched. Breakfast's audience was 1.8 million, a share of 38%; the News at One scored a huge 5.1 million and a share of 44 per cent; the Six ranked even higher with 7.1 million (30 per cent share) and the Ten reached the heights of 7.4 million (32 per cent share).

Whenever there has been a big news story like this we assess it afterwards and see what we can learn from it. Do please let us know what you thought of the BBC's information service across news (national and regional) and weather.

Your pictures and video certainly made it clear that people were having a lot of fun out there.

Lastly, I'd like to pay tribute to our reporters and TV crews who have been out in the cold and snow for hours on end.

Peter Horrocks is head of BBC Newsroom

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• Dominic Ball
• 3 Feb 09, 11:40 AM

I was sitting at my desk the other day when one of the producers pointed out that the alcohol figures we'd been expecting had just been released.

I looked up at my screen, anticipating a sharp spike in the number of people who'd died because of alcohol abuse. Stands to reason, I thought: recession, people losing their jobs, drinking to console themselves - the numbers are bound to be up.

But they weren't, in fact they were marginally down. Stands to reason, I thought: recession, people have less money in their pockets, can't afford alcohol.

Then I saw that the figures related to 2007 and I thought, stands to reason: the numbers were fairly stable, because they covered a period before the full-blown recession took hold.

However, there is another explanation - that the figures had nothing to do with the downturn. When a story as big as the economic crisis takes hold, there's a tendency to see nearly every other story within its context. But human behaviour, and by extension news, is driven by a myriad of motivations. There's a danger that we all start to view the world through too simplistic a prism.

Dominic Ball is editor of the Radio 4 Six O'Clock News

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• Rod McKenzie
• 30 Jan 09, 01:19 PM

How old were you when you had your first drink?

I'd be interested to know if starting early made you less or more likely to drink more later in life.

The reason I ask is, of course, that new government guidance for England advises that children shouldn't be allowed to have any alcohol until they're at least 15. After that, it recommends all booze should be drunk under supervision until the age of 18.

Our audience on Radio 1's Newsbeat - our young audience - was not impressed. Most seem to think it's another example of nannying, don't-do-this-do-this government.

Kimberley texted us to say:" i lived in a pub when i grew up and i had my 1st drink at the age of around 6ish. I am now 25 and i no my limit and with seeing people drunk when i was younger made me not want 2 look like that".

Dave in Filey, North Yorkshire agrees: "it's about time the govt started to actually run the country and stopped interfering in the public's personnal lives-we are not as incapable of rational decision making as many people in govt think we are".

But Georgina from Leeds says: "Alcohol is a drug and potentially poisonous. It can damage developing organs and seriously affect judgement. The argument that the more adults say no the more children will do it is a cop out by parents who do not take their responsibilities seriously. It is our job to keep children and young people safe".

Other listeners cited the European family drinking culture, which seems to work well for the Italians, Spanish and French, they say: not much binge drinking there, thanks to a sip or two with mum and dad at the dinner table. A view endorsed by David Cameron when he was interviewed by Newsbeat last year - he's all for an introduction to sensible tippling.

And by the way, I had my first drink aged 11: do I drink sensibly? Well... mostly.

Rod McKenzie is editor of Newsbeat and 1Xtra News

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• Tom Giles
• 29 Jan 09, 04:58 PM

Bad or offensive language (as opposed to the politically, socially, legally or even factually contentious variety) isn't usually at the forefront of Current Affairs' concerns.

Certainly not in the way it is for, say, comedy, drama or entertainment. Panorama's historically robust attitude to the subject is best typified by Richard Dimbleby here in 1965 in a clip uncovered by a fellow blogger.

But the fall-out from the Ross-Brand affair has had a wider impact on what the BBC does. There's been a tightening of pre-transmission "compliance procedures" for all programmes, and e-mails have been sent to all staff asking them to formally confirm they accept BBC editorial guidelines around which this compliance is focused.

The compliance teams themselves are currently being "audited," and an internal Special Task Force examining where "the appropriate boundaries of taste and generally accepted standards should lie across all BBC output" will report in the spring. Blimey.

The BBC is overreacting, complain some. They say it's being too sensitive to criticism from any quarter - this, for example, from Jeremy Clarkson, who's not averse to a little controversy himself. Others feel the BBC has been hopelessly compromised by its association with the likes of Jonathan Ross and needs to re-embrace its traditional, mainstream audience.

So it seemed a legitimate matter of public interest for Panorama to investigate - was the furore generated by Ross-Brand affair a flash-in-the-pan or a glimpse of wider unease about broadcasting standards?

We asked the comedian and broadcaster Frank Skinner to present it - partly because it's his job to decide where he draws the line with his own comedy and partly because he had written thoughtfully about whether swearing had gone too far and had experimented with taking it out of his own act.

We've carried authored or part-authored pieces on the programme before for example, the author Bill Bryson looked at litter in the UK last year but of course there will still be complaints. Frank himself responded to these, slightly tongue-in-cheek, in a newspaper column last week.

The bigger problem with this issue was in the nuts and bolts. Aside from the views above, there are few statistics to help objectively measure it. On swearing, for example, the last major attempt to count the amount on the main terrestrial channels was carried out by Ofcom and the BBC nearly six years ago. That pointed to a sixteen-fold increase in the use of the most serious swear words over the previous decade.

Since then, nothing - even at a time when new digital channels have proliferated and pressures to appeal to a younger audience, distracted by the internet, have risen. Polling audience views is hazardous too. We were limited to discussing swearing after being told that any polling on "offensive material" would need a full breakdown of all the areas that might cover - from sexism to violence to religious offence.

The results of our polling on swearing and offensive language did suggest, however, that the audience was concerned broadcasters hadn't been listening to their views on the subject.

The feeling was that swearing had increased since that last survey in 2003 and that the amount was currently too high. So how will the BBC and other broadcasters actually deal with this audience perception?

Interviewed in the programme, Channel 4 seemed happy to carry on as before - arguing it plays well to their core audience. ITV said they would rein in their own use of swearing as the all-important advertisers saw it as a "family channel" and the BBC would "think harder about the use and purpose" of language.

Whether the Corporation will actually step in to censor material, as of yore - for example, with the ever-risqué George Formby - will be thoroughly monitored. And Panorama may yet resort to the Dimbleby swear-box again.

Tom Giles is deputy editor of Panorama

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• Rod McKenzie
• 28 Jan 09, 10:40 AM

The issue of cannabis always provokes strong reaction for audiences to Radio 1 and its urban music sister station 1Xtra.

It's certainly true that younger audiences have a more tolerant attitude to the drug than a succession of governments: they are, after all, much more likely to be users - but beyond that generalisation, the detail of the argument is fascinating and illuminating. That's why we're spending this week focusing on the arguments for and against the re-classification, as well as the health issues - myths and facts.

Rich from Wakefield texted 1Xtra to say he started on ganga when he was eight. But added: "Gave up for 2 years and started again, still smoking it and I'm fine." Over on Radio 1 another texter said: "I've been smoking green for 4 years now and I also know lots of people who have been smoking cannabis for 10 years...none of us has experienced any problems with our body and brain." Others contacted us to say that alcohol is far more harmful.

So our audience thinks it's harmless and are all for legalisation? Er, no.

On 1Xtra: "I think weed is pretty bad cos I was getting panic attacks and I cudnt even get on bus. My boyfriend has panic attacks 2." Others said they'd developed schizophrenia and depression, lost friends and split from partners because of their use.

Students claimed their studies and grades had been affected and that social lives had been damaged. Many blamed strong weed, skunk, for the problems. Memory loss, mood swings and loss of confidence were also blamed on green.

"I work in a homeless hostel and would say a quarter of our cannabis users have drug-induced psychosis. The other three-quarters suffer from depression which results in lack of motivation" (to work). Another user added: "I also had a friend who committed suicide due to paranoid schizophrenia which we believe was caused by cannabis."

But on the other hand back on 1Xtra: "I'm 25 I pay my rent, my bills, my child maintenance, if after a day at work I want 2 have a smoke I don't feel any1 is in a position to tell me otherwise."

So cannabis and schizophrenia. Is there a link? The government's top drug advisor, Professor David Nutt, told Newsbeat evidence is building to prove there is. But he reckons the risk is small - and alcohol can be just as damaging.

Marc Middlebrook, 27, was sentenced to life imprisonment last year for stabbing his girlfriend Stevie Barton to death because he believed she was part of a plot to kill him. The court heard that he had made his mental problems worse by "stubbornly" continuing to smoke cannabis after doctors told him to stop.

Newsbeat spoke to Stevie's mother Jackie, a former psychiatric nurse. She said she doesn't blame the drug for her daughter's death.

"I always say cannabis didn't kill my daughter, Marc did," she said. "I know lots of people - doctors, professionals, nurses - who have smoked cannabis for years and do not commit crimes." It's no good standing there wagging your finger and saying this is wrong. People need to be able to know the facts and there is a lot of information and counter-information around cannabis use at this time."

And if you want to join in, you could even do our online questionnaire.

Rod McKenzie is editor of Newsbeat and 1Xtra News

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• Mark Thompson
• 24 Jan 09, 06:38 PM

It's not often as editor-in-chief I use our 'editors' blog' to highlight a BBC issue, but with strong views about our decision not to broadcast a Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for Gaza, I wanted to write directly and explain our thinking.

When there is a major humanitarian crisis, the DEC - which is a group of major British charities - comes together and, if it believes various criteria are met and a major public appeal is justified, asks the BBC and other broadcasters to broadcast an appeal. We usually - though not always - accede to the DEC's request and as a result have broadcast many DEC appeals over the years.

A few days ago, the DEC approached us about an appeal for Gaza and, after very careful reflection and consultation inside and outside the BBC, we decided that in this case we should not broadcast the appeal. One reason was a concern about whether aid raised by the appeal could actually be delivered on the ground. You will understand that one of the factors we have to look at is the practicality of the aid, which the public are being asked to fund, getting through. In the case of the Burma cyclone, for instance, it was only when we judged that there was a good chance of the aid getting to the people who needed it most that we agreed to broadcast the appeal. Clearly, there have been considerable logistical difficulties in delivering aid into Gaza. However some progress has already been made and the situation could well improve in the coming days. If it does, this reason for declining to broadcast the appeal will no longer be relevant.

But there is a second more fundamental reason why we decided that we should not broadcast the appeal at present. This is because Gaza remains a major ongoing news story, in which humanitarian issues - the suffering and distress of civilians and combatants on both sides of the conflict, the debate about who is responsible for causing it and what should be done about it - are both at the heart of the story and contentious. We have and will continue to cover the human side of the conflict in Gaza extensively across our news services where we can place all of the issues in context in an objective and balanced way. After looking at all of the circumstances, and in particular after seeking advice from senior leaders in BBC Journalism, we concluded that we could not broadcast a free-standing appeal, no matter how carefully constructed, without running the risk of reducing public confidence in the BBC's impartiality in its wider coverage of the story. Inevitably an appeal would use pictures which are the same or similar to those we would be using in our news programmes but would do so with the objective of encouraging public donations. The danger for the BBC is that this could be interpreted as taking a political stance on an ongoing story. When we have turned down DEC appeals in the past on impartiality grounds it has been because of this risk of giving the public the impression that the BBC was taking sides in an ongoing conflict.

However, BBC News and the BBC as a whole takes its responsibility to report the human consequences of situations like Gaza very seriously and I believe our record in doing it with compassion as well as objectivity is unrivalled. Putting this decision aside, we also have a very strong track-record in supporting DEC appeals and more broadly, through BBC Children In Need, Comic Relief and our many other appeals, in using the BBC's airwaves to achieve positive humanitarian and charitable goals. This is an important part of what it is to be a public service broadcaster. It is sometimes not a comfortable place to be, but we have a duty to ensure that nothing risks undermining our impartiality. It is to protect that impartiality that we have made this difficult decision.

Finally, it is important to remember that our decision does not prevent the DEC continuing with their appeal for donations and people are able to contribute should they choose to.

Mark Thompson is the BBC's director general

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• Jeremy Hillman
• 23 Jan 09, 04:15 PM

On the day the UK has moved into an official recession, I thought it would be worth returning to a subject which has come up before but on which we still receive a regular flow of e-mails and comments.

There's no doubt that a proportion of audiences for TV and radio, and here online, feel that the BBC is just too gloomy in its reporting of the economy. Some of you feel that the coverage is just relentlessly downbeat and while you don't question its accuracy, you tell us that it's just a switch-off and that you've heard it all before. Others, even more worryingly, feel that our reporting is positively undermining confidence and has actively contributed to the situation we're in.

On the first question, whether we're just too gloomy: it's something that we're acutely aware of and which we regularly discuss. It's a concern which has been shaping our coverage in different ways. A simple example may illustrate.

It's clear that reporting every single house price survey that comes across our desks, can, by simple dint of repetition, create an overall impression of a picture more gloomy that it is. For instance, if we report a 2% house price fall three times in one month from different organisations, it may be completely accurate. Yet some regular viewers will take away the impression that house prices are falling much more steeply, assaulted week after week by essentially the same story.

For that reason, we are very choosy about which surveys and statistics to report and we plan our coverage more broadly than a simple "on-the-day" reaction. Similarly, our "downturn" graphics with the plunging red arrow have attracted some criticism. Seen once or twice, they have a far milder effect than constant repetition many times a day over a period of weeks or months. That visual power and the reinforcing effect of repetition is something we've taken into account in designing our new "recession" branding which began today.

We've also made real efforts to reflect the nuanced picture of the economy. We understand that many people are unaffected by this recession and that some have even benefited. You can see some examples of the variety of coverage here and here. Only yesterday, we widely reported gas price cuts which will benefit millions.

Secondly, the allegation that our coverage has somehow contributed to the worsening economic conditions. It's a that view I reject, but I'm not going to pretend that we do our journalism in a total vacuum.

Clearly, confidence plays a part in any economy. Yet I don't believe that accurate and factual coverage, of the sort we provide, does anything other than help people make sensible, rational judgements about their own economic behaviour. The UK is in the midst of global financial crisis and financial reporting can surely have had nothing to do with governments around the world being forced to inject trillions of dollars into their banking systems?

The BBC has a duty to accurately report and reflect the facts and statistics of the UK economy in a proportionate and measured way and I believe we do that to the best of our ability. Our audiences would not expect us to talk up the economy any more than they would want us to talk it down.

Jeremy Hillman is editor of the business and economics unit

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