Saying sorry
We've had nearly 200 complaints to our audience logs about our decision to switch away from live coverage of yesterday's speech by William Hague (watch it here) to the Conservative Party conference to instead interview Michael Howard. Here's a flavour of what's being said:
• "Did Labour pay for this to happen?"
• "Even Michael Howard in the studio said he would rather watch William Hague's speech."
• "Have you lost your minds? He is such a brilliant speaker."
I'd like to tell you there was a good reason. But I haven't one. So here goes: it was a poor editorial decision, I accept the criticism and I apologise. We'll try to learn from this mistake which I believe was uncharacteristic of the coverage as a whole; and I hope that those of you who were upset can understand that - when under the pressure of doing extended live coverage in fixed time slots - we can all make the odd unintentional error.
But now that's off my chest, I don't want the error to overshadow what was some great conference coverage over the past three weeks, and I don't want the apology to suggest I'm not very pleased with the programmes overall. Why?.
Take : Three weeks ago I wrote about our recruiting them and my hopes for their impact on the attitudes of the young toward politics. Some rather rubbished the idea. Since then, they've interviewed the three men seeking to be prime minister, reported for The Daily Politics, led Newsround, been interviewed on a dozen regional news programmes, appeared on News at Ten, and featured on . Their contribution has been refreshing and insightful. And I know they've reached millions of viewers and listeners young and old.
Or take - an innovative way of allowing audiences to engage with key speeches by recording their reaction directly into their phones and downloading the information onto air. You can find out more about it on the programme website. It's the world's largest interactive focus group, and the technology deserves to be used more widely by programme makers in every genre.
And of course, we've covered and analysed quickly and well over a hundred stories and speeches from the conferences themselves. In this light, my opening 'sorry' hasn't been the hardest word.
Comments
Was just thinking about the decision to take a live speech and whether and when to cut away. A report out this week puts digital televsion at 70.2% in the UK.
As the speech may have been carried in part on News 24, and in whole (and repeated) on 91Èȱ¬ Parliament, when everyone in the country has these two channels, would that change the editorial decision - ie we don't need to carry it now, change channel, or it's right in the context of the programme, even if News 24 and Parliament are carrying it?
Well done indeed to Jamie Donald! It is almost unknown for a 91Èȱ¬ editor to own up to a mistake or error of judgement (and we all make mistakes). The usual response is a bland and patronising self-justification, sometimes masquerading as an apology ("We are sorry if viewers were unhappy...," which, translated, means "We couldn't care less what viewers think.") So, once again, congratulations to Jamie Donald for his frankness.
The perception panel was interesting enough, but I don't think the analysis of the results was particularly good. In particular, the conclusion drawn regarding the perception in the North of Cameron on 'faith schools' was completely, in my opinion, misread. It had nothing to do with "not trusting" the Tories to run education. Having said that, I guess we daren't suggest that some parts of the UK aren't deriving benefits from multiculturalism...
Apologies and use of the "line" we will learn from our mistakes is too easy a phrase and has become more than questionable to viewers and listeners alike. Crocodile tears would seem more appropriate.Incidently why no mention of the visit to Afghanistan by HRH P Anne? Sky and the press covered it
Because, J Hind, no-one gives a toss.
I complained about this because andrew neil said to michael howard that if viewers wanted to see the speech then they could see it on bbc parliament. That ignorantly and wrongly assumed that everyone has digital tv which many like myself do not. Apart from that the purile questions asked of howard were just of no importance whatsoever.
To end though, good someone has had the courage and integrity to apologised.