Coronavirus | Television News Coverage

I am the Editor of Newsnight @carolecadwalla & I am responsible for the output of the programme. @maitlis hasn’t been replaced tonight in response to the BBC statement. @katierazz is part of the team and we work as a team throughout.

— esmewren (@esmewren) May 27, 2020

Although Maitlis said last night she would be back today, and she's billed on the BBC website.

As if licence fee payers play second fiddle to some tiny station in Oz.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs, the optics of the Maitlis decision are terrible.
Her being hooked off air this evening and publicly disciplined seems in complete contrast to incidents like Kuessenburg reporting the false story that a Labour activist had 'attacked' one of Matt Hancock's advisers or replying to Pippa Crerar as if she was correcting Pippa by quoting a 'Number 10 source' (and a few other Laura K incidents where she hasn't read the room or has been seen to reply too heavily on 'Number 10 sources' ) or Fiona's Bruce Diane Abbott off-air jibe on Question Time - which even if Fiona or Laura did nothing wrong felt decidedly dodgier behaviour than what Emily is being dragged over the coals for and yet Laura and Fiona got away without even a slap on the wrist. And I say this as somebody who thinks Fiona Bruce is great.

The public way it's been done makes it seem like the BBC don't trust Emily's journalistic judgement which I imagine must be quite demoralising. Plus the decision in government eyes will support and vindicate the decision to have their ministers boycott Newsnight and allow the government to argue going forward (incorrectly) that Newsnight 'won't give them a fair shot'. So the Beeb are damaging their own programme in that way.

Again from an optics point the two presenters the BBC have brought the hammer down on in recent times in Naga & Emily are both women. In a world where diversity and gender equality is increasingly important and it's felt that BBC women are underpaid in relation to male counterparts, being so stern to two female presenters for pretty trivial incidents does come across very badly and almost suggesting the female presenters should 'know their place'.

Similarly the optics too of punishing a journalist like Maitlis who was essentially trying to hold the government to account while being objective and at the same time giving a partisan lightweight like Tom Harwood airtime to say what they like in the name of 'providing balence' is not a good luck - almost as if 'providing balance' whether that balance is merited or not is more important than actually giving viewers the facts and holding those in power to account.

I wouldn't blame Emily if she did maybe decide to move from the Beeb after being so publicly admonised for what at worst was a minor misdemeanour (if that). She certainly wouldn't be short of offers given her reputation as one of the strongest, most talented journalists around.

The phrase 'sledgehammer to crack a nut' seems apt here. The Beeb really need to learn better when to pick their battles regarding integrity.

Why would it require Susanna going anywhere?
GMB is in desperate need of someone with some sort of personality at the back end of the week and Maitlis could easily fill that role.

Two of the 3. They have also openly criticised Ben Thompson for remarks on twitter.

She’d be wasted on GMB.
She is one of the best political journalists around.

I can't really see Emily Maitlis going from Newsnight to crossing to Andi Peters for today's competition.

Launch aborted

If ITV were to poach Maitlis, I doubt they'd be using her and I'm not sure she'd be best pleased to go on a show that barely scrapes a million viewers even on a good day.

Surely they'd make room for her on one of the big national bulletins - though I think it's wrong to speculate really about the future position of any ITV News presenters.
I would say though I think she'd be better at the 'conversational' News At 10 style than perhaps Bradby is (though in any case I'm more old school and much prefer somebody to just read/bark at me the news).

In my opinion Emily Maitlis is one of the best journalists in the UK. Her professionalism and dignity are remarkable as is her humanity. Anyone who reads her book "Airhead" shows a side to her that proves that Journalists are as human as the rest of us. I firmly believe that her opening to Newsnight was not in any way, shape or form malicious or overstepped the mark. Yes, she should have clarified her words but that doesn't mean she should be dropped.

News at Ten might just about have enough editorial freedom and room for presenter led long form interviews for her to be interested, but I really don't see Maitlis ever returning to a standard newsreader roll reading a script in a structured bulletin. She has clearly never made career choices with the audience figures as the major consideration considering she was a pretty regular BBC One presenter at one point but now remains almost solely focused on poorly rating Newsnight as well as various side projects that are far from mass audience.

I'd forgotten that one. And it's probably the worst of the lot from an optics standpoint - the Beeb telling off an LGBT broadcaster for having a pretty understandable reaction to one of the BBC's flagship shows suggesting that debating 'whether schooldchildren should learn people like him exist' was reasonable -as if that's something that should be up for debate

Again of those BBC 'balance' issues - by suggesting something like LGBT recognition is up for debate it then gives credence to viewpoints that frankly do not deserve merit or to be treated as credible.