The issues involved in British membership of the European Union represent a faultline that runs not just through UK politics but through British society. It is a topic that frequently enrages viewers, listeners and readers like few others.

You only have to look at the poll in today's Times, suggesting widespread support for the Prime Minister's action at last week's summit, to see the depth and power of Euro-scepticism across the country. Like any highly controversial subject, it is always challenging for an impartial news organisation to report without inflaming strong views on either side of the debate.

Trust must be at the heart of the BBC's relationship with its audiences and that is why we listen carefully to the range of feedback audiences give us. We've had some criticism of our coverage over the weekend claiming it was too "pro-European". I've watched, heard and read a great deal of what we did and without any sense of complacency, I think we reported events fairly and accurately and tried hard to capture a very wide range of views about last week's summit.

It is not our job to hail any summit on any subject as a "triumph" or a "disaster". Our role is simply to report and analyse events and their fall-out.

Nobody disputes that there was a big row in Brussels last week or that the Prime Minister's approach left him standing alone among European leaders - but there is considerable disagreement about whether or not that is a good thing and what it might mean politically and economically. Our job is to explain what happened and interrogate the different perspectives taken on Mr Cameron's stance so that our audiences can judge for themselves.

So on Friday and over the weekend we attempted to discover just what it was that the Prime Minister had vetoed, which safeguards he was seeking for the City of London, and what had changed for the UK and for Europe. We questioned a wide range of politicians and we picked up the unease among Liberal Democrats, which burst into the open with Nick Clegg's appearance on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday.

We've backed this up with analysis of the political and economic implications by our most trusted and respected editors: Nick Robinson, Gavin Hewitt, Robert Peston, Stephanie Flanders and a host of other correspondents.

Almost inevitably, this process leads to politicians having to field some uncomfortable questions from BBC interviewers. We don't do that because we have some hidden agenda but because the public expects us as an independent and impartial broadcaster to hold governments and opposition parties to account.

Over the weekend news programmes have featured in-depth interviews with George Osborne and William Hague for the Conservatives, Nick Clegg for the Liberal Democrats, a range of Euro-sceptic voices and some highly critical Labour politicians. All have different views, all have been allowed to express them - and rightly so.

It is the nature of contentious subjects - Europe, climate change, the Middle East - that they polarise opinion. Among those who feel strongly about them, BBC News is often accused of "taking sides". We must always be open to criticism of course - we don't get everything right. But criticism, however ferocious, should never deter us from focussing on the basics: telling the story accurately and fairly, testing it against a wide range of opinions and challenging all those opinions with rigour.

It's not an approach that makes us popular with everyone of course, but it may explain why audiences have remained so loyal to BBC News output over many decades.

Helen Boaden is the BBC Director of News

I'm delighted to tell followers of our new-style blogs (Nick Robinson, Robert Peston, Mark Mardell and co) that full RSS feeds are available again.

When we launched the new pages, I said it had been an unintended consequence of our changes that we were no longer making full feeds available. We recognised that significant numbers of people use RSS readers - particularly those who read a lot of blogs - and we hope the development will be welcome.

I should also note that following feedback to the earlier post, we also changed the way comments are displayed by default on correspondent pages. Unlike news stories - where the first visible comments are those most recently added - the default on correspondents' posts is chronological order, oldest first.

We've also started including correspondents' tweets on their pages. An example is my colleague Dominic Casciani, home affairs correspondent, who was recently tweeting from the Old Bailey and from outside St Paul's Cathedral among other places. The growth of web-based short-form journalism, seen also in our Live Pages, is fascinating and is one of the ways in which our blogging is kept fresh.

Giles Wilson is the features editor of the BBC News website.

The past 12 months have not been easy for BBC World Service. Following a significant cut in funding from the Foreign Office in October last year, it has involved painful decisions to close five language services, make stringent savings across the board and lose highly valued colleagues.

Protesters celebrated in Tahrir Square after President Mubarak stood down

Yet despite the tight financial environment, we have continued to raise the bar on quality and creativity in our services. Today, impressive new figures are published which demonstrate that the BBC's international journalism is as valued, vibrant and relevant as it has ever been.

New independent research shows that people across the Middle East have increasingly turned to the BBC during the Arab uprising with an unprecedented rise in audiences. Overall audiences to the BBC's Arabic services have climbed by more than 50% to a record high of 33.4 million adults weekly - up from 21.6 million before the Arab Spring.

BBC Arabic TV's audience has risen to 24.5 million from 13.5 million - up by more than 80%. Weekly reach across Egypt, Iraq, Saudi, Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco has nearly doubled to a weekly reach of 18.4% from 9.8%.*

The biggest increases were seen in Egypt, where the BBC Arabic TV audience quadrupled to a weekly reach of 16.2%, reaching 9.3 million people.

BBC Arabic TV also saw its weekly audience increase by almost a quarter in Iraq to a weekly reach of 26.6% (from 21.5%) reaching 4.9 million people. In addition, its weekly audience more than doubled in Jordan (weekly reach of 22.4% from 8.8%) and in Saudi Arabia (weekly reach of 24.6% from 12.2%).

These figures show that, in turbulent times, the BBC's aim to provide trusted news and impartial information is as valued as ever. International audiences in the Middle East are turning to us for independent, dependable and unvarnished news that they can trust.

Behind the numbers, and in an increasingly competitive media market, this is proof that there will always be space for high-quality journalism that seeks to inform all, even-handedly.

I am proud of our journalists and staff for never losing sight of the BBC's core purpose and hope our journalism makes a practical difference to people living through fragile times and sometimes frightening change.

* Weekly audience estimates are based on independent studies that were carried out by the Broadcasting Board of Governors' International Audience Research Program (IARP) in Egypt, Iraq, Saudi, Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco. The Broadcasting Board of Governors is an independent federal agency responsible for all US government-supported, civilian international broadcasting.

Liliane Landor is languages controller of BBC Global News.