Sky News: Presenters & Rotas

I think you do have to trust a journalist to be impartial (though obviously calling out any nonsense - balance for the sake of balance isn't useful either) and that was just not very good from Jayne at all and she came across as rather unpleasant to be honest in that interview.

Fair to say with this clip and then the Notre Dame breaking news yesterday some presenters shone on news channels (Brianne Keilar, Katty Kay,Jon Sopel) while others didn't (Geeta G-M, Jayne Secker)

I think that's a pretty decent response to be fair. Short of "I resign" what more did you expect?

I think people would probably have been expecting an actual apology rather than just an admission that a mistake has been made which upset people (not least the interviewee).

At least Secker has admitted her mistake, but personally she has lost a lot of respect from me as a broadcaster and Sky clearly got it wrong.

However I still stand that a broadcaster whose job is to be impartial shouldn't have been anywhere near that interviewee. She has a clear financial incentive to bellite her guest. That's different to a presenter who buys coffee from Costa Coffee when interviewing someone from Pret.

I think some of the shock is that you wouldn't expect such bias from Secker. Kay Burley on the other hand is known for her numerous gaffes during her interviews over the years, but you'd expect her to be like that as part of the Burley brand, not from a supposed impartial broadcaster.

"Mea Culpa" is generally considered to be a form of apology isn't it?

I'm not sure how or why you think she has a clear financial incentive to belittle that particular guest? Many, many journalists will have views/interests that may well be connected to the story they're covering. Take the piece on BBC News yesterday about farmers' mental health issues as just one example. The reporter was BBC journalist Gareth Barlow, a former farmer himself (as stated in the report).

I know the subject matter is different, but my point is that you will never be able to have *people* that are truly impartial on every topic but that you must strive to ensure the people you do have *act* with impartiality.

Home owning/renting/being a landlord are things that just about every adult in the country will probably have done at some point. It was a top story on many outlets yesterday and Sky News couldn't very well ignore it because the rostered presenter happened to be a landlord. The editorial management would (I expect) quite rightly have expected her to conduct the interview in an impartial manner as I'm sure she has with many other subjects she has a view or experience in.



I think it's a bit of a grey area. Personally I would take it as meaning "it's my fault" but not necessarily "I'm sorry". Having a quick look at online opinion, her tweet certainly seems to have been taken as a non-apology by most (I know Twitter isn't the best place for reasoned opinions but still).

The Secker interview really was very poor. The fact that Secker is a landlord shouldn’t have been an issue, but she took the interview entirely off topic based on her personal experience, coming off as extremely patronising in the process.

The interview has gone viral, with 1.5m views on Twitter alone. Not the sort of image Sky News want at all. Secker’s tweet this morning arguably makes it worse, an apology to the guest would have been far better.

This one has also turned up from yesterday- SECOND ONE, how many complaints have gone into ofcom about sky news?

THIS IS THE SAME PRESENTER ON THE SAME DAY, DEAR LORD pic.twitter.com/IV7sRKm5si

— Hannah Jane Parkinson (@ladyhaja) April 16, 2019

Speechless!

To be fair I don’t think she’s done anything wrong there.

There clearly would be differences between living in a Ghanaian village community to a big city like London and as he’s given that answer she’s allowed to question it.

Something as simple as I'm sorry to "insert persons twitter handle here"

While Jayne did seemingly not her best day anchoring yesterday this does seem to be another case of the angry Twitter mob mentality that can make it so tiresome to read at times. People get offended and then pile on and look to see who can be the most offended,, suddenly become leading thinkers on whoever/whatever they're criticising until they all move on to the next thing to get offended by tomorrow.

Some of the replies are quite laughable - one saying that Jayne's aim is to be the next Katie Hopkins or Julia Hartley-Brewer which is just ridiculously over-the-top.