work as a middle aged person was a decade ago. and — it cost hundreds of millions of pounds to set up formula one in vegas. but the first practice was cancelled afterjust 9 minutes when carlo�*s sainz hit a loose manhole cover. the second session was delayed and fan areas closed. let's hope the rest of the weekend is smoother. time now for 10 seconds of a car cat. benjy gets reported missing many times a day when people find him wandering round his local shop in south shields. but i reckon he is just having a fun time seeing all the different sights of aldi car park. i mean, can you blame him? you're all caught up now. see you later. this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour. how graphic should tv news be in showing images of violence from the middle east? welcome to newswatch with me, samira ahmed. coming up — is bbc news right to broadcast footage of people being shot and of dead bodies in israel and gaza or is such coverage distressing viewers unnecessarily and desensitising them to acts of violence? first — a frenetic week in politics started early on monday morning, but the bbc�*s chief political correspondent henry zeffman. he'd already been standing in downing street for 3 hours amid rumours of a cabinet reshuffle, when he went on air with some surprise breaking news. um, i'm a bit tired, but i don't think i've had a funny turn. but let me just tell you what's just happened. david cameron hasjust walked up the street and gone into ten downing street. i think, i don't know, but i think that means he's going to be the new foreign secretary. that appointment was soon confirmed and viewers of henry zeffman�*s marathon stint outside number ten were impressed with emma ferrie addressing him like this. heather newman agreed... there were no such plaudits for this bit of output on the news channel in the early hours of wednesday morning. we do have some breaking news at this moment. we are hearing from reuters that is reporting that israel says its forces are carrying out an operation against hamas in gaza's al—shifa hospital and they are targeting people, including medical teams as well as arab speakers. that line about targeting medical teams and arab speakers was then repeated a few seconds later. but it was a misreading of the reuters report, which actually said that medical teams and arab speakers went into the hospital with israeli forces. henrietta lewis emailed us as follows... and the board of deputies of britishjews said this in a statement... later in the day, bbc news tweeted and broadcast this apology... we said that medical teams and arab speakers were being targeted. this was incorrect and misquoted a reuters report. we should have said, idf forces included medical teams and arabic speakers for this operation. so, we apologise for this error which fell below our usual editorial standards. the correct version of events was broadcast minutes later. war is a gruesome business, and when reporting on it, broadcasters have to balance a duty to portray fully and accurately what's happening on the ground with the need not to distress or shock the audience unnecessarily. bbc news hasn't shirked from showing the horror of the conflict in the middle east. for instance, in tuesday's report from orla guerin on what had happened in gaza's largest hospital. we are not showing the footage ourselves, but the news broadcast pictures of bodies covered in blankets as viewers heard the line, "so many decomposing bodies that a mass grave has been dug." there were more dead bodies shown on wednesday of last week in a report from jon donnison, again transmitted on the news at six and news at ten. even before the war, the west bank was at boiling point and the fury of what's happening in gaza, as well as israel's cracked down on militants here as well as civilians, has seen the temperature rise to a whole new level. rounds fire it's a dangerous moment. how dangerous was exemplified by what followed. video of a teenager being shot dead, where the picture was frozen before he fell to the ground and of another man being shot and seriously injured. and there had been more distressing images a couple of days before in reports from jeremy bowen and fergal keane. israel promised mighty vengeance. it thundered across beach camp in gaza city. israel's justification is defending the living as well as avenging its dead. palestinians call this genocide. forfour weeks now, ourjournalists in gaza have recorded the impact of the war on its children. those who survive live with the trauma. those reports went on to show respectively pictures of a bloodied and injured child and a dead child, and it produced this plea from nick gamblin. astrid kazarian added... let's discuss this withjon neal, the editor of the bbc�*s news at one, six and ten, and with viewer steve wardell, whojoins us down the line. thank you both for coming on newswatch. steve, you first contacted us about that report last week with the two shootings. why? what was your concern? my initial thought was you were showing people being shot on the news, which isn't something that historically i've been used to seeing. but it then occurred to me that you were showing them being shot on a news channel, a programme that was actually sort of before the 9:00 watershed. and i then came to the conclusion this was likely something that children shouldn't see. and children watching, you know, very graphic images of that nature, it can be quite disturbing and traumatic for them. and so my initial thoughts were children would be very affected by seeing this. jon. we think really carefully about all the images that we show. i mean, that's particularly important during wartime. and there are ways in which we try to counter the effect that it might have and to try and give people proper warning about what we might be doing. so in that piece, we put quite a strong warning beforejon�*s report to let people know that this was happening. we didn't show anything graphic in the headlines, which we really try not to do because we're aware that people may be watching whatever�*s on previously on bbc one and therefore coming to the programme. the piece was filed in advance. we talked tojon about it and we talked internally in the team and i think there's a couple of factors here. so the boy who was shot and died, we didn't show the moment at which he died. we showed up to the point in which he was shot and then we freeze framed. we heard the gunshot and then it froze. yes. and then you had the reaction of his sister. it left very little to the imagination. the gap was extremely small. yes, it was extremely small. but the line that we're always treading, which i think you mentioned, samara, is the line between showing you mentioned, samira, is the line between showing honestly and accurately the reality of the situation and what our reporters, our camera operators and are seeing on the ground and also what people are experiencing. and they're marrying that with the line of audience expectation and also protecting people from the worst auspices of what's happening so they don't see the most graphic things. the family posted that video to social media and we spoke to a human rights organisation before we showed it. and the reason that we paused it, is so that we don't show that point of death. so it is a very nuanced decision. you gave a strong warning. well, that's fine for the adults that understand and appreciate that something gruesome might be about to appear on the screen. but children are mesmerised by screens. they won't have heard or understood or appreciated the warning. they would have continued to have been mesmerised by the screen and they would have watched it from one moment to the next, absorbing it like sponges. there is an element of traumatising people watching footage like this. and ijust wonder, john, how do you balance that? i think the biggest issue which steve has raised is also about it going out at six when children are likely to be watching. and you said you thought about it carefully, but with hindsight, was it perhaps an error to show them at six, the shootings? i don't think it was an error. i mean, i think that it is our responsibility and our duty to show what's happening in war and to allow people to understand the reality of the situation. and there is a danger of sanitising things. and i think it is key here we didn't show... well, i accept everything you say, steve. we didn't show the boy dying. and we did. we did pause it, then we did freeze frame it. i think there's the second shooting, which i think you mentioned at the start in the same video in which a man was shot in the stomach. so we spoke to that man's family. we knew that he hadn't died. we knew that he'd survived. and we the family gave us permission and said that they wanted us to show that footage. these decisions are really finely balanced, but we felt it was appropriate at both 6:00 and 10:00 in general. i think in general there is a big difference between what we show at10:00 and 6:00. it's good that the 10:00 news is different to the six. but i challenge you, john, if you're working in a newsroom, you're seeing footage that's graphic and horrendous all the time coming through and you're filtering it potentially you get acclimatised to it. i mean, i work in a hospital, i see dead bodies and i know that i am used to it. i wasn't when i first saw them. i am now. other people that see them for the first time are very shocked. you are seeing graphic images and your editors are seeing graphic images all the time. so who is checking you? who is it that's the third party that's coming in and saying, well, actually, you know, maybe we're crossing a line here. finally and briefly, john. yeah. how do you respond to the idea that perhaps the bbc, without realising it, is kind of becoming desensitised and therefore potentially desensitising the audience? so in that instance, we do have a third party group of they work inside the bbc. and in that instance with that piece, we referred it to them. so it's the bbc editorial policy unit. so they give us advice on what we can and can't show, and then we talk to them and we decide what to do. it was, you know, as far i think as we would go, which is why it's a really interesting example to discuss. but we decided on that decision that it was the right thing to do. i mean, i listen to everything you say and i worry about those things where i understand those concerns and we do have those concerns and we're not cavalier about it. we'll have to leave it there, but steve wardle, thank you so much. and john neal, thank you. thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions about what you see or hear on bbc news, on tv, radio, online or social media. email newswatch at bbc.co.uk or you can find us on x formerly known as twitter at newswatchbbc. you can call us on 0370106676 and do have a look at previous interviews on our website, bbc. co. uk/newswatch. that's all from us for now. thank you forjoining us. do you think about getting in touch and perhaps even coming on the programme? and we'll be back to hear more of your thoughts about how the bbc covers the news next week. goodbye. this is tim peake, only the uk's second astronaut. he spent six months aboard the iss in 2016, living, working and walking in space. coming out. 0k. he's one of only 628 humans to have left our planet. and in his latest book, he's written the story of some of the other 627. all of them are special, a rare breed. and i met tim at imperial college london's data observatory to talk about a few that mean something extra special to him. yes, so this is bruce mccandless. 1984, out of the space shuttle challenger. and it's an iconic photograph. it's the first untethered spacewalk. we do lots of spacewalks today. they're never without risk, but they have become more commonplace. but we're always tethered to something in case we fall off. but to go outside on a spacewalk with no tethers whatsoever, just floating away from the shuttle, is incredible. why did he do it? well, he's been working on this manned manoeuvring unit, as it was called, which was a developmental piece of equipment, looking at how you could manoeuvre around out in space. you know, we actually need a small version of this,