OT: I wonder how many copies of this complacent bullshit went out...

[Bill Wright]

Dear Mr Wright

Thank you for contacting us regarding BBC News.

We understand you felt there has been too much coverage of the death of Nelson Mandela.

[No, I complained specifically about Mandela crowding out Look North's storm coverage]

We have received a wide range of feedback about our coverage of this story. Bearing in mind the pressure on resources, the response below strives to address the majority of concerns raised but we apologise in advance if not all of the specific points you have mentioned have been answered in the manner you prefer.

Please be assured we raised your concerns with senior editorial staff at BBC News. They explained that as Nelson Mandela was one of the most important world leaders of the 20th century [...]

[They revised this from the original claim by the BBC News Director that Mr Mandela was 'the most significant statesman of the last 100 years'. What about Churchill or Gandhi?] [...] the judgement was made that his death was sufficiently significant both to break into our scheduled coverage and extend our news programmes. His long and complex life story represents a moment of historical change for people in South Africa and around the world; his political and cultural influence was global and as both a UK and international broadcaster we believed it important to reflect that and the range of reactions to his death to all our audiences.

With specific regard to news coverage of the storm affecting parts of the UK on the 5 December, Director of News James Harding said the following during the 6 December edition of Newswatch:

?I?m sorry if there are people who felt as though we didn?t inform them fully of what was happening in the weather, particularly in the North East.?

He added:

?What?s happening in people?s communities, what?s happening closest to where they live matters enormously and we had been rolling weather coverage from early in the day, particularly when the storms were at their strongest. Had we seen real breaking news on the weather that meant we needed to inform people immediately, we would have done so.?

With that in mind, we would like to say that BBC One viewers received updates on the storm in their area during regional bulletins broadcast at 2250 and in a weather forecast at 0030, on the BBC News website and on BBC local radio stations throughout the night.

We hope this goes some way in addressing your concerns.

Kind Regards

BBC Complaints

NB This is sent from an outgoing account only which is not monitored. You cannot reply to this email address but if necessary please contact us via our webform quoting any case number we provided.

[Bill]

[Andy Cap]

This should please you then ! They certainly don't appear to worry about licence fee payer's money, that's for sure.

[Brian Gaff]

Well at least two, as I moaned and got a similar one. They do not actually read what you write at the bbc, Its happened before. I complained about some of their I player offerings with audio description, actually did not have them, and they said they would look into this, and then said they were flagged as having it and as now they are no longer on the site that they definitely had it and blah blah. They simply did not admit that they might have actually made an error and only put up the version withoug ad, but further to that I pointed out that in one case it never had it in the first place on air, and this was ignored completely.

Its just so depressing. Brian

[charles]

It isn't just the BBC, I wrote to my MP once and received "standard paragraphs answers". Neither were to the questions I actually asked.

Have run a "customer contact" point, I know that misreading the question can easily happen, Often because of pressure from above to meet a target of "letters answered per day".

I had a colleague who had a disciplinary interview because he was taking too long on phone calls.

[EricP]

Just over 1000 complained thus we can presume that this many stuffers went out.

[meow2222]

If that's the true figure anyway. I wouldnt be surprised if 2/3 of them got defined as not complaints on some totally unrealistic technicality

NT

[Vir Campestris]

Or else there are categories: under 10, 10-100, 100-1000, and over 1000.

We don't know how many over :)

The only time I ever bothered to complain was when the newsreader finished one story and then said "Michael Shumaker won..." 5 minutes before the Grand Prix programme.

Andy

[F]

I made a similar complaint last year. They denied it had happened. Unfortunately, I didn't have a recording but I do know I wasn't mistaken.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

What a patronising shit that man is.

[Weatherlawyer]

Snipped.

I'd class Churchill with his contemporaries all of whom failed to prevent a major political disaster or actively caused one.

However Churchill rewrote history and his version has become the defacto one. He was just a drunk who was good at killing British soldiers and giving in to monsters.

This is not the place to air you right or wrong wing views. Now kindlyfick off.

[Dave Liquorice]

Certainly trys to put over a very earnest and scincere appearance but in the same manner as Blair and Cameron, it's just so obvouisly a face for the camera.

Strange how there was very little lead coverage of the weather events over all of the North of England and serious problems all down the East Coast. Yet a tiddly bit of fog for a few hours yesterday morning near London makes the front page.

During the storm all of central Middlesbrough lost power for hours when a substation flooded, there is widespread tree damage over Cumbria & Northumberland, I've not been into Durham yet.

[bert]

In message , Grimly Curmudgeon writes

There is a program on BBC News called Newswatch which pops up now and then when viewers complaints are read out. Then they have a response from a senior BBC news manager. I have never once heard them accept a viewers complaint nor even acknowledge that they might just have a point.

[The Other Mike]

... Accrington Stanley Nil

[The Natural Philosopher]

Accrington Stanley LOST...come ON..

[Dave Liquorice]

Only if the "Nil" had a falling inflextion. B-)