Sky News: Presenters & Rotas

Well presumably they’d expect her to be professional in the situation and not to bring up her own personal grievances into it.

I find it funny she apologised for the swearing when that won’t be what gets the most complaints from that interview.

Always thought Jayne to be an excellent presenter but ouch, that is terrible.

Well that worked out well for them didn't it? Secker should have never been anywhere near that interviewee and it's right to criticise Sky for their poor editorial decision in this instance. It's not been their best day with this appalling interview and then the poor coverage of the Notre-Dame fire where it showed the lack of resources to cover the event in a major world city.

Agreed.

But what happens if all the presenters are landlords do you not interview them? It stands to reason a lot of people who are in a well paid industry like the media are going to be renting out property.

There is a reasonable expectation that someone in her position would put any personal opinions aside in such a discussion the same as there would be a reasonable expectation an interviewer would have their own opinions on Brexit but the viewer should be none the wiser.

So the production team aren’t to blame here for me, it’s the presenter who has let the standards slip.

Both are IMHO. Sky have let it slip today.

They've done a great PR job recently with Sky News Raw, which allowed us to see how they perform, but they got it wrong today, majorly. It deserves a review of how and who should conduct interviews if the presenter is duly biased. For example being a landlord or having a connection to the interviewee.

It's an issue that print publications have had as well.

Well I can only speak about this one incident but I think most presenters will have a point of view on most issues based on their own experiences the point is they should be able to interview anyone without showing their personal feelings. Renting out property is not that an uncommon a thing and even less uncommon amongst high earners so it’s entirely feasible the interview might have not been conducted at all under your conditions.

And where do you draw the line? Should being a parent stop someone conducting a debate about smacking?

I’m sure newsreaders have all sorts of connections and viewpoints to stories they cover all the time that we don’t realise because the presenter is doing their job properly. Clearly in this case Secker was not.

What this incident has shown is the gulf between the middle class high earning tv presenter who happens to rent out properties to people who earn much less than she earns from her tv work and her other business as a landlady. It creates an even bigger gap between the personalities who inform viewers of the news and their audience who aren't all ABC1. Ant and Dec may be earning shed loads from ITV, but they haven't forgotten their working class roots when they entertain viewers.

To ensure due impartiality, the presenter should have declared that she is a landlord and been removed from the interview, along with the production team being aware of her other business activities to ensure this incident wouldn't have happened.

What they could have done to keep Secker as moderator is to invite a guest who represents landlords, which may have led to her not being biased in her questioning of the tenant. Again, this is an issue that the production team should have raised at the meeting before the bulletin went out.

What would you think if they had someone on to conduct an interview with the renter and her as a landlords perspective?

Jayne has posted this on Twitter

Clearly yesterday I got the tone and content of an interview wrong and it has upset many people. I am sure many of us will have made a mistake at work - unfortunate for me mine is a lot more public than most. Please be assured I have taken the many comments on board. Mea culpa.

I don't think that response does her any favours either

I have to agree with Jon here, there has to be an assumption from the employers that a journalist/presenter on their coverage will not be biased either way when conducting an interview, regardless of whether or not they have personal experience in that particular field.

Is the business reporter who's owned a couple of dodgy cars once upon a time not allowed to interview the CEO of a car company? Can the BBC reporter who's had several disappointing coffees from the NBH Caffe Nero not interview a barista?

There has to be a line drawn somewhere and I think if there's fault here it lies with Secker, not the editorial staff.

I think the moral of the story here is nobody's perfect. Everybody has their own opinions on everything, even Brexit. But if we remove people who think one way or the other on Brexit there would be no news reporters on TV at all when a Brexit story comes along.

But yes there has to be a line somewhere and likewise one has to assume you're going to be professional about it and be as unbiased as you possibly can be, otherwise we wouldn't have any news media at all.