- Tim Levell
- 4 May 07, 12:15 PM
A debate in the Newsround office right now is whether to cover the story of .
There are many many families up and down Britain where drunken parents can cause great upset for their children - and even rip families apart.
The fact that David Hasselhoff has released a statement saying that his daughters were "concerned for my well-being" and that he has seen the tape and "learned from it" means that he has accepted the problem and is on-side with the tape being shown.
And it's a powerful example of how concerned children can help their parents get through their troubles.
But the video is undeniably strong. One clip shows him struggling to eat a hamburger; in another he says he is "lonely" because he has "trouble in our life".
It should go without saying that we would do this as a story about children raising concerns about their parents' behaviour -- not in any way making light of what's happened.
Since I started writing this entry, one of our reporters has been talking to , who've told us that "as long as we do it responsibly, it could be beneficial".
We are erring on the side of doing it - and on the side of showing some but not all of the video. (Another discussion is whether we show the video full-screen or somehow shrink it or have it in the background.) Bearing in mind that we aim at six- to 12-year-old children, what do you think?
Tim Levell is editor of Newsround
- Peter Barron
- 4 May 07, 12:01 PM
Newsnight is under attack again from , the online group whose self-appointed task is to "correct the distorted vision of the corporate media".
They take issue with an interview Gavin Esler did recently with the US Under Secretary of State Nick Burns on Iran and Iraq. I don't think it was the greatest interview we ever did, and nor does Gavin, but does that make us, as some Medialens adherents have claimed, complicit in war crimes or agents in preparing for war with Iran?
Unlike some in the media who studiously ignore them, I've always thought Medialens make a noteworthy contribution. Along with other lobbyists and pressure groups they invite us to question what we do and when they make a valid point we should reflect it. But how many people do they actually represent?
We had a different complaint this week about our coverage of the Iraq war from Michael Gove, the Conservative front bencher. He said: "It is still the case that around one third of the British population believes, despite all the errors and horrors, that the decision to remove Saddam was right. But where, and how often, is that perspective presented on the 91热爆?" Should we listen more to that view than Medialens's? Gove at least represents Britain's currently most popular political party.
Where I do agree with Medialens though is that we shouldn't try to please everyone by adopting a safely uncontroversial stance somewhere in the middle. Our job is to ask uncomfortable questions reflecting views from right, left and centre and not just from those who shout the loudest.
Peter Barron is editor of Newsnight
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