That there was no evidence at all for those claims and similar statements elsewhere on bbc news, was queried by graham lascelles. There were also objections from the other side of that argument, with someone using the twitter name wattsupdoc . Wondering. In recent months, the bbc has found itself making the headlines for how its used racially offensive language in some of its reports. Were going to look at that issue now, with care, but we will be quoting some words. Two cases cropped up this week. On monday, a member of the house of lords, lord kilclooney, tweeted this question. What happens if biden moves on and the indian. That phrase the indian to describe Kamala Harris caused some outrage, and the peer later deleted the tweet, claiming it was a mistake, but he did not apologise. The bbc news website described it as an offensive and a racist tweet, but put both of those words in quotation marks, which elicited this response from andrew pickering. Two days later, the chairman of the football associaton, greg clarke, was answering questions before a Parliamentary Select Committee about diversity. Heres dan roan, reporting for bbc news bulletins. If you go to the it department at the fa, theres a lot more south asians than there are afro caribbeans. They have different career interests. But that wasnt all he said. Clarke then referring to black players using an offensive and outdated term. High profile coloured footballers and the abuse they take. Greg clarke resigned from his post later the same day. He said he was deeply saddened for the offence he had caused by using that term. And that evening, one viewer david buttar emailed us to say. Well, to discuss all this, lets speak to kamal ahmed, the editorial director for bbc news. Kamal, lets start with
the two cases this week. The first one, with the peer referring to the us Vice President elect as the indian. Now, the bbc described that as a racist tweet, with the word racist in quotation marks. Why . Because they were quotes from parliamentarians and others about lord kilclooneys comments, and so we put them in quotes to show that they were attributed to other people who were criticising him. And also, in no way would they suggest that the bbc was passing any form ofjudgement on what was said, so we simply used the quotes to show that there is attribution and that those were criticisms of what lord kilclooney said. So, critics of him were describing the tweet as racist, and thats why the word racist was in quotes . Yes. Then theres greg clarke, the chairman of the fa, who resigned after remarks bbc news reported there. They focused on this particular word used to describe black players. Were not going to repeat it. We heard him saying it there. Bbc described it as offensive language. Why use that word to describe it . Many people consider the use of the word as offensive. And, clearly, he resigned after saying that the word was offensive and there was widespread agreement that the word that he used was offensive, so we were able to use that as a description of the word. And given that he resigned, he clearly realised that he had used the word inappropriately. Kamal, you and i are old enough to remember a time when that particular word was used quite widely in mainstream british society. Its offensive now. And one wonders, should the bbc be repeating it at all . We obviously were allowed to use it once there, when he said it himself. So, we have quite in depth discussions about these issues before we broadcast. And you have to get the correct balance between audience understanding of the story and also not causing gratuitous offence to audiences, and so it would have been difficult,
we believe, for the audience to understand the story if we simply didnt use the clip of greg clarke saying the word at all. But also, you dont want to compound any offence by repeating the word over and over again in scripts or in cues before any packages are seen, so we agreed, after a wide discussion amongst editorial heads here, that we would use the clip once to give context to the audience, what the word was but we wouldnt overuse it and risk doubling the offence that could be caused. I suspect there are people watching right now who would be saying they dont find that word offensive. What would you say to them . Well, thejudgement we take is whether it is offensive to audiences. And there would be many audiences who would find that word offensive and we have to take care if that is the case. It doesnt mean that Everyone Needs to find it offensive before we make those judgements. And also, as i say, greg clarke resigned, so clearly there was an agreement that what he had said was inappropriate and offensive. This all comes after the summer in which the bbc broadcast the n word in a news report about a racist attack, defended it for quite some time, but then apologised after a huge public outcry which included a radioi dj resigning over the matter. Did the bbc give in to public pressure or did it get it wrong . No, we agreed that we hadnt made the right decision at the outset, we apologised for that. There were in depth discussions about the coverage of that story. It was a very, very important story about an horrific, racially aggravated assault, and it was reported in the way it was reported. We realise that that was a misstep and we apologised for it. You implied thered been discussions, so has there been
a rewriting to some extent of bbc editorial policy since then over how news deals with racially offensive language . Yes. So, after that, as you suggest, we had discussions about how we can ensure that our guidelines were robust on these issues, and now we do have new guidelines in place on the most racially offensive slurs, and they are now automatically referred to the director of the division in our case, the director of news, Fran Unsworth and that means that we have robust systems in place to ensure that we dont misstep in that way again. There can be disputes around what was the intent of the use of certain words, and thats perfectly reasonable, and its important that the bbc doesnt passjudgement on the motivations of people using words but making it clear that words are offensive. Kamal ahmed, thank you. One of the challenges of being interviewed remotely from home, as so many people are during this pandemic, is what to show in the background of the camera shot. Many interviewees go for a book shelf, perhaps to show how well read they are. But there can be another benefit, too, as the journalist Susie Boniface showed when appearing on the papers last friday night. The author of that book to her right, fleet street fox, was Susie Boniface herself, prompting this response from melanie milne. Three days later, the bbcs global trade correspondent Dharshini David was also speaking to the news channel. Look out for the six copies of the book the almighty dollar on the shelf above her. Youll have guessed the author. Rob croft thought it was a. And Michael Flannigan posted this. 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 and social media, e mail newswatch bbc. Co. Uk, or you can find us on twitter newswatchbbc. You can call us on 0370 010 6676, and do have a look at our website for previous interviews bbc. Co. Uk newswatch. Thats all from us. Well be back to hear your thoughts about bbc News Coverage again next week. Goodbye. Hello there. Friday started off with some rain across eastern areas, but that cleared out of the way with sunshine and showers following. The showers are always most frequent across western portions of the uk, and particularly for north west england, wales and western scotland. Now, looking at the satellite picture, our attention is now drawn to this lump of cloud thats just to the west of us, and thats going to be the next area of low pressure that will be arriving somewhere near you just in time for the weekend. So the weekend is going to be an unsettled one. Often the weathers going to be windy, and there will be various spells of rain to come through for all of us. Saturday morning, then, starting off like this, with rain at times for many of us. A southerly breeze first thing in the morning, strengthening, and those southerly winds will be bringing mild air in. Across wales and Western Areas of england, it becomes very windy through the afternoon, with gusts of wind reaching the low 50s of miles an hour. Wont be raining all day therell be some drier slots across the east of england, dry at times through
the central belt, and northern scotland probably starting off the day on a dry note. Itll be a mild day temperatures 13 in belfast, 15 degrees in london and cardiff. Now, through saturday evening and overnight, therell be further pulses of rain coming and going. The next most significant area of rain arrives, really, across northern ireland, wales, and South West England towards the end of the night and the first part of sunday morning. This next area of rain, then, will continue to push its way northwards and eastwards again, so most of us will see rain at times, and even as the rain clears into scotland and northern ireland, where it will linger into the afternoon, further south west, we have those showers that will come through thick and fast, merging together to give some lengthier outbreaks of rain, and some strong winds developing around the south coast gusts here could reach around 50 or even 60 odd mph. And eventually, well start to get
some cooler and fresher air blowing in across the uk, so through the afternoon, temperatures about 9 to 11 degrees. Now, for monday, well see a little ridge of High Pressure building in for a time, ahead of the next weather system, so a short lived window of drier and brighter weather. That said, always prone to a few showers across northern scotland where itll stay quite windy. Some sunshine ahead of this next area of cloud and rain that will spread in through the afternoon, so again, a changeable kind of day. Temperatures close to the seasonal average about 10 to 12 degrees celsius. Tuesday, well, it looks like again well see some further showers, particularly across north Western Areas. Further south, closer to an area of High Pressure, it looks like the weathers going to be drierfor many, although western portions could see a few showers, and then weve got this band of rain that again will begin to move in to the west, but quite late in the day. Now, beyond that, this time yesterday we were talking about the forecast becoming quite uncertain, and the uncertainty was tied in with a trough in north america. Thats still the case its this trough here that brings big differences between the various computer models. And those differences kind of grow with time, as do the amplitude of these troughs and ridges as they move
towards our neck of the woods. Now, yesterday, it looked like one of the solutions towards the middle and the end of next week was that High Pressure would build in, but that looks less likely now. The more likely scenario is that it stays unsettled, with further areas of low pressure. Often well have some fairly windy weather, and towards the end of the week, well, there is a hint that we could see some slightly cooler air moving in across the uk just for a time. But nevertheless, it does look like the forecast is going to stay pretty unsettled with further spells of rain and strong winds well into next week. This is bbc news. Im Lukwesa Burak with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. President trump is about to announce details of operation warp speed a programme to speed up development of coronavirus vaccines and treatments after the us reports another record day of infections. We will be live in the rose garden. Some states are taking drastic action to slow the spread one ofjoe bidens top pandemic advisers warns of a disaster as the thanksgiving Holiday Season begins. We have a fire raging across the nation and the holidays threaten to be gasoline poured on that fire. It comes asjoe biden wins the state of georgia putting increasing pressure
on mr trump to admit he lost