really suitable fare for news bulletins orjust a form of advertising? and on april fool's day, 1957, the bbc tried to convince viewers that spaghetti grew on trees. this year, it fell victim to a hoax itself. what did you watch on tv over the bank holiday weekend? bbc one's new sunday night drama this town, the latest david attenborough series or perhaps the final of the hit entertainment show gladiators. if you're wondering what those have to do with the programme about news, well, take a look at this item on last friday's shortened bbc one lunchtime bulletin. now the creator of the bbc�*s hit series peaky blinders has described his latest drama, this town, as a love letter to birmingham and coventry. set in the 1980s, it follows the formation of a band as the two tone music scene was exploding into the pop charts against a backdrop of civil unrest.

oliver coates got in touch with us after watching that and recorded his thoughts on video. i was compelled to voice my dissatisfaction with the bbc, given the sheer enormity of events that have occurred over the last few days around the world and the shortness of the bulletin. for some reason, the bbc thought it necessary to insert a three minute piece purporting to bring attention to people that a new broadcaster have become available, at drama called this town. they dressed it up with vox pops. they dressed it up with library footage and made a big point about it being by the creators of the peaky blinders. i really don't think it necessary the bbc to put even more adverts for their own programmes purporting to be news when there's quite clearly enough of other things that need to be discussed. very, very poor. very, very poor bbc, please stop doing this. but they didn't. that evening, a rather different forthcoming programme came under the news spotlight.

this sunday david attenborough returns to our screens with his latest series, mammals — five years in the making. it explores how the world's mammals are coping with rapidly changing habitats and warming climates. a mr and mrs garner contacted us this time, emailing, "the article being broadcast was thinly veiled as climate change news, when in fact it was simply yet another now relentless example of the bbc advertising the bbc, an upcoming new series with david attenborough. " and the following day bbc one's late news bulletin highlighted not an upcoming programme, but one that had recently finished on the same channel. now look away if you don't want to know who has won the final of gladiators tonight. the programme has been a big hit for bbc one, with an average audience of 8 million viewers tuning in over the last 11 weeks. contacting us this time was gary stewart and hejoins me now. thank you so much, gary. what prompted you about that item

on gladiators to contact us? having turned on the news and seen the severity of what is happening in the world, i do appreciate that a lot of news programmes will have a lighter announcement at the end of the programme. but that for me is something like what i would call skateboarding duck type territory and to have the self—promotion and self—congratulation, which is what it felt like of putting on the gladiators final — inserting it into a news item — i do not think that was event appropriate. gary, i'm going to put to you an argument that it's been a big success with multi—generational audiences, which is quite rare in television these days. and several news organisations did cover the success of gladiators as a cultural story. even allowing what you said, could you make the exception that this was fair enough in this case?

no, i believe this is light entertainment. my concern would be, where do we stop with this? do we say who won this week's house of games, for example, on bbc two? it felt that it was much more the bbc saying to itself, "we've had a hit revival. now let's self—promote and say how fabulous it all went for ourselves." if i wanted to know who had won that, i would watch the programme and i did not. yeah. as you heard that other viewers complained about items on the drama this town and on the david attenborough series. do you think there is an issue with the bbc�*s self—promoting masquerading as news more often? i am concerned that i am seeing more and more of this occurring within certainly the news items. and if you watch the news channel, there are certain promotions prior... for example, between the weather and the news upcoming. and i'm watching this thinking, well, am i watching a commercial station here or am i watching the bbc? so that sort of self—promotion

is disturbing. i do feel there are genuine programmes that can be talked about something like a panorama or when they have an issue that they're there alerting us all to. it's important that that issue is raised. but a light entertainment programme, i'm sorry, i don't see it. gary, we do often get complaints from some newswatch viewers that the news is too relentlessly miserable. in that sense, could entertainment stories like the gladiator one be part of the news mix? i do think there is a place for it, but i don't think it should be the bbc saying, "here is one of our own programmes." i have no problem with the world being made a better place by an item that makes you smile. but let's make sure that it's not in—house, shall we say. gary stewart, thank you so much for coming on newswatch. thank you. we did ask to talk to someone from bbc news about this, but we're told that no one was available.

instead, we were given this statement. "we feature new releases when they shed new light and add deeper understanding to significant issues. for example, david attenborough's new series, mammals, sheds new light on how animals are adapting to the ongoing issue of climate change, a subject we know is of huge interest to our audience. our package on this town also looked at the cultural impact of making top tv shows in birmingham, boosting local creative industries and bringing awareness of birmingham's cultural history to a wider audience. gladiators was enjoyed by an audience of around 8 million per episode, making it of interest to a large number of people. the report put this in the context of how, in an era of increasingly fragmented audiences, the show had managed to attract people of all ages to watch the show together on a saturday evening." another regular irritant to some newswatch viewers has also been on show twice in the past week or so. on thursday of last week,

the journalist martha gill was speaking on the news channel about the emotive subject of assisted dying. there's also an argument that there are risks and that people might be pressured into dying based on things such as their economic situation or whether they're depressed or vulnerable, because it's actually a very radical thing to think of suicide in this way. martha, we will need to leave our conversation there. thank you very much. martha gill. we just want to bring you some pictures now from worcester, worcester cathedral, where queen camilla... ..has arrived for the traditional royal maundy thursday service. this was the queen a short while ago outside the cathedral. chris mitchell had this reaction. "just seen your presenter cut an interview short very abruptly to bring us pictures of queen camilla entering a building

for maundy thursday celebrations. surely these few seconds of pictures could have been recorded and broadcast with a slight delay rather than cutting the interviewee off so rudely." and if one interruption to bring you footage of a member of the royal family wasn't enough, here's the premature end of an edition of panorama shown on the news channel on sunday. good morning. how can i help? will ravenhill has been an estate agent in leicester for 35 years. he says immigration has increased demand... and i apologise very quickly for interrupting the panorama programme there. we're taking you live to windsor castle where we are going to see shortly, king charles. as it happened, the king didn't make an appearance for another 12 minutes, prompting tim wallace to send us this message. "i broadly support the royals, but what on earth possessed the bbc to cut away from a very informative

programme about an important issue to go live to a church doorway to see someone walk out of it? how the hell is that breaking news? to add insult to injury, nothing happened until after 12:00 when panorama would have finished, and instead we were treated to interviews with american tourists and bland—filler waffle from the reporters. no reason this couldn't have been filmed and shown on the next bulletin." finally, april the first is a day for everybody to try and fool people and avoid being fooled themselves, and that includes the media. the bbc has perpetrated some impressive hoaxes over the years, none more famous than this report from richard dimbleby for panorama in 1957. the last two weeks of march are an anxious time for the spaghetti farmer. there's always the chance of a late frost, which,

while not entirely ruining the crop, generally impairs the flavour and makes it difficult for him to obtain top prices in world markets. but now these dangers are over and the spaghetti harvest goes forward. hundreds of viewers rang the bbc the next day to ask how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. but this year the corporation played the full itself, with bbc oxford falling for a groovy tale about the origins of the woodstock festival. blenheim palace had sent out a press release claiming centuries old records had been discovered documenting a music festival that took place there near the oxfordshire town of woodstock, exactly 200 years before the legendary 1969 rock festival in new york state. an archivist for the palace was quoted as saying the 1769 festival was doubtless inspiration for the 1960s hippie gathering. after the hoax was revealed, a spokesperson for the bbc said, "the article had fallen short of its standards and had been corrected." on social media, black dog thought this was proof that the bbc will believe any old rubbish,

while skin kiss referred to the corporation's fact checking service, asking, "did they forget to �*verify�* it?" 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 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 think about getting in touch and perhaps even coming on the programme. we'll be back to hear more of your thoughts about how the bbc covers the news next week, goodbye.

agriculture plays a huge part in many people's livelihoods in kenya. in fact, the industry employs more than 40% of the total population. but climate change is having a real impact on the crops there. and you might be surprised to find

out what one of the most sensitive crop types is. flowers. they have a specific window for being grown and sold, and if the weather's out of sorts, it can completely derail the process. but technology can help. and shiona mccallum has spent a day on a rose farm in naivasha to find out more. our years are punctuated by times that we want to buy flowers — valentine's, birthdays, christmases. and the chances are, when you look in your bouquet, one of the stems would have been grown here in kenya. but like most places, this part of the world is not immune to the problems that climate change is bringing. rising temperatures, extreme droughts and flash floods are affecting the crop yields. in fact, just a couple of years ago, some kenyan flower farms reported losses as high as 50% due

to the impact of heavy downpours. so that's where the technology comes in. artificial intelligence company lima labs is providing a machine vision system using drones, which they say makes the farming smarter and more predictable. we use a camera on the drone to take images of crops in the farm. and then once we've gotten those images, we send them to the office and then we're able to process them and give insights to farmers. and insights span all the way from a prediction of their harvest, it spans all the way to a prediction of stem density, growth rates, probably in the future, even detection of pest and diseases. on this farm, some of the flowers are grown inside huge greenhouses. the ai algorithms being used can help predict the weather patterns through sensors on the farm that detect humidity, temperature and other environmental conditions. a dashboard on a computer screen displays footage of the plants, providing stem and flower head count

and other crucial data, like the chance of an insect infestation. this all helps farmers better predict fluctuations in growing and harvesting patterns. well, the big issue is climate change and the unpredictable weather patterns. the heavens have opened now, so we're going to head inside, into the packing room, and do the rest of the interviews. hi, i'm shiona. hi, i'm mercy. nice to meet you. nice to meet you, too. can you show me around? sure. 0k. tell me what's happening here. this is our grading hall. it's one of the - post—harvest sections. post—harvest, that means. we process the final product that is from harvesting to packing it and dispatching _ to the final customer. and can you talk to me about some of the varieties? because these lovely little red berries are nice.