My first duty as a ±«Óãtv TV journalist is straightforward - to tell viewers the most significant news from Britain and around the world. At its simplest, we cover events and announcements as they happen and offer additional context and intelligent analysis. But there are also important trends that have the power to change the way we live - but which are not yet marked as news "events".
How much time should a news programme give to covering these big themes?
Four or five years ago, climate change was something talked about by environmentalists and climate scientists - it was not part of the main news agenda. But we were in at the beginning with our reports on its impact across the globe. Now there's an emerging debate about a complex but related subject - . Can we continue to consume food - refrigerated and transported from around the globe at a time when we should be reducing our carbon emissions? And what about the impact of using corn to produce bio-fuel? It is directly leading to an increase in the price of food here and potentially could lead to food shortages in other countries.
Two weeks ago, in the first of our 'Mad about Food' series, Jeremy Cooke gave a graphic visual account of the when he watched buckets of prime cod being thrown dead back into the sea because the quotas for this particular fish were exhausted. Ministers here and in the European Union agreed the rules needed to change.
This week the British consumer will spend a record amount on food in the run up to Christmas and we'll be carrying a series of reports exploring emerging issues around food sustainability.
Supermarkets deliver huge choice, convenience and often low prices - it's where the majority of us choose to buy our food. We'll be reporting on some of the local food initiatives but also the overall environmental impact of the sourcing, transportation and refrigeration of the food industry. But we won't ignore the positive results of the international trade for emerging markets like Kenya - where deals with British supermarkets lead to employment and economic development.
A report from AC Neilson today says consumers here are increasingly concerned about where their food comes from and how far it has travelled. The supermarkets we have spoken to tell us they are well aware of the trend, and some of the biggest have given us unique access to the work they are doing to ensure they find the most sustainable sources of food.
We'll be carrying a range of reports from around Britain on the work being done to grow food efficiently and ensure it travels as short a distance as possible from field to plate.
Further afield we'll be reporting from Chile on how the demand from fresh cherries all year round has led to the growth of a new food chain and we'll be finding out why a major fish producer says it makes economic sense to send prawns on a journey around the world before they return to be sold in supermarkets a few miles from where they were caught.
The launch of the Halo 3 video game earlier this week was one of those moments that a subject which does not normally make it on to the television news becomes a big deal. But as pointed out, we showed some footage of a Sony game when we were talking about the new Microsoft product.
Rory Cellan-Jones, our technology correspondent, explains how the mix-up occurred. He writes:
"This, I'll admit, was a bad mistake. Naturally I'm usually an enthusiast for digital technology, but this time it's really caught me out.
"In the days before we went digital tapes used to arrive in the building properly labelled and then make their way into our video library, where they would be viewed and their contents logged accurately.
"Now the pictures end up in digital form on our 'Jupiter' server. On this occasion a cameraman went out in August and shot some material about Halo 3 - but also shot footage of Sony's Killzone. He then loaded it into Jupiter.
"Spool forward a month - and after editing a story for the One O'Clock news which only featured Halo 3 material, a video editor and I were looking for some fresh shots for our Six O'Clock piece. He searched the Jupiter system and found something marked simply "lib(library) Halo 3". That was the footage uploaded in August - which also included Killzone and we ended up choosing that, not realising it was the wrong game. Result - disaster, and one replicated in the Ten O'Clock version of the story.
"What was impressive to me was the speed with which bloggers spotted the mistake. So the latest technology can lead you down the wrong path - but it can also bring any foul-ups under the spotlight of the eagle-eyed web generation.
"Sorry - we'll try to be more careful in future."
One of the big stories this week has been the verdict in the trial of four people found guilty of attempting to bomb the London transport network on 21st July.
While a trial is running, vast amounts of information comes out in open court. Much of it is not reported at the time because the news agenda moves on and we rarely report every day of a trial over many months. ±«Óãtv journalists also beaver away collecting more background and contextual information. Once the trial ends, and reporting restrictions are lifted, the whole story can be told - including some information which may not have been put before the jury.
One of the difficulties we face in telling the story is illustrating events which did not take place in front of cameras. Sometimes we use reconstructions - when actors show us how something might have been done. They're a useful device as long as they're clearly labelled - it is essential the viewer is not led to believe that they are seeing real events.
We did this on our report on the bomb plot (which you can watch for yourself here) - using information that was given in open court that the bomb was made from hydrogen peroxide and chapatti flour. A number of viewers contacted the ±«Óãtv to complain about this, one saying they felt it was "more or less a chemistry lesson on how to make a bomb". In our report, we made it clear that this was an exact science, and that the bomb failed because the chemicals were mixed in the wrong concentration. Indeed how the bombs were actually made, and whether they were viable, became a key issue in the trial.
We gave no details about the actual concentrations that were used - indeed, much more detailed information on bomb making is available on the internet. We used clearly labelled reconstruction pictures of a clear liquid being heated and flour being added - illustrating no more than had been said in court and widely reported in the press. We didn't include details of some of the other ingredients that are used to make this mixture into an explosive (again, this information is widely available). The pictures would be of no use to a would be bomb-maker.
Kate Robinson runs the team which made the background packages - she points out that a great deal of consideration went into what information was included.
"We obviously thought long and hard about what aspects of the bomb-making process we would show. All the information we used was already in the public domain and there are many facts which would be needed to make such a bomb that we did not go into - even though we know them. However, as the defence rested on their claim that this was a protest and not a workable bomb, we felt that it was important to show the public that these were truly viable devices. At all times we have taken into our decision making process the advice that was being given by the police at court. What we did would not enable people to make a device."
One final important consideration is that we need to give people enough information to know, in future, what might be suspicious. For example, had more people known about the use of hydrogen peroxide, then the police might have been warned about unusual purchases of large quantities in advance.
When the broke our first responsibility was to cover the breaking story accurately and as fully as possible. The events appear sensational - but for many it is a personal tragedy which we needed to reflect with care. (For those of us with teenage children at college or university it doesn't take much to imagine the horror for American parents).
Once we are through the initial phase we gather round the newsdesk and begin discussing how our coverage will develop over the next 24 to 48 hours. I look after the One O'Clock and Six O'Clock News - but our coverage doesn't begin and end with these two bulletins - we must also provide 24-hour cover on two levels for all our outlets including Breakfast, News 24 and the Ten O'Clock News.
Not only must we have reporters working in the field, we must also be able to provide live coverage across a range of output. So we sent our presenter Emily Maitlis. Some say it's a waste of money to do so, but having Emily on location ensures our reporters are free to do their job - finding new information and adding new insight to the story. Emily presented across all outlets - News 24 at noon in the UK, and then the One, Six and Ten O'Clock bulletins while our reporters have travelled around the region, interviewing people, finding new angles and explaining how and why something has happened.
The result is some remarkable reporting from correspondents like Jonathan Beale, who found a licensed Virginia gun dealer selling weapons across his kitchen table. Matt Frei has reported live for the Six and Ten O'Clock News, but has also been talking to new eye-witnesses and gathering their first had accounts. Our coverage of a major breaking story is down to team work - correspondents, presenters, producers and technicians working long hours to keep us abreast of the latest events.
I've taken over from Amanda Farnsworth as editor of Daytime News on ±«Óãtv One - responsible for the One O'Clock News and Six O'Clock News. They're two of Britain's most watched news programmes - and are broadcast into the heart of the family home. That means we have a special responsibility to be careful over the stories we choose and the language we use.
I recognise that the judgments we take in a newsroom - often a fevered environment - can seem very brutal when you're watching television at home in the kitchen or living room. So a decision on whether to use the word "bastard" on the Six O'Clock News - a decision I had to make last week to - is tough. For some people, this is extremely offensive language.
My first reaction was that we should try to avoid using the word at six o'clock, as I recognise it is a time when families are watching. As editor, I accept that getting that right tone and language is extremely important. There was an extra complication - Mr Mercer used the word three times, and so to report the story fully, it would need us to say it three times.
The more we examined the story, the more we realised that the story itself was about the use of language in the army and that it was impossible to explain why a senior Conservative had been sacked from the Shadow Cabinet without explaining what he had actually said. We did examine whether we could use a graphic with the word BD, but that didn't get around the problem of what our reporter would actually say.
We looked at the ±«Óãtv editorial guidelines and discussed the issue with editorial policy and with senior management. I concluded that given the importance of the story - the programme was leading on it - and the impact of the language used on Patrick Mercer's career, the viewer would only have a full understanding of what had happened if we used the full quote in its proper context. We agreed with editorial policy that we would give a warning before the report, telling viewers that it contained offensive language.
Incidentally, I note that most other broadcasters also chose to use the B word in full. But I'd be interested in your thoughts as to whether you think we got it right.
