are a world away from the likes of Jan Leeming, Richard Baker, Peter Woods and Richard Whitmore, who were all top newscasters when I was growing up, but I had enormous respect for them all to deliver the news unvarnished.
Am I correct in thinking those newsreaders were actors and not real journalists? I'd like to see a return to hiring actors to read the news, although I'm sure it'll never happen at the BBC.
They were not actors as such, more they were professional announcers mostly. Peter Woods being the notable exception there, he actually was a journalist and had been a reporter for BBC News before becoming a newsreader.
We have seen professional announcers read the news more recently. Most regional news bulletins pre-1993 were anchored by professional announcers, both BBC and ITV. ITV Westcountry used announcer Peter Griffin as an occasional news anchor and weather presenter. Andy Crane has read the Channel M News and he's no journalist.
I think the "professional announcer" approach to newscasting is as worthy as having journalists present it. The announcers are trained to give the words the right tone of voice and infliction. A journalist can give a story credibility. There's plusses and minuses to both approaches.
I don't get the sense that Sky News is unbiased, unvarnished. I get the sense that they are favouring conservatives in their coverage.
Well they're not favouring a political party as such, but they could be favouring a particular set of attitudes and values which may just happen to be more in line with the Conservative party's values than those any of the other party, and that's perfectly fine. You have a choice between six different news programmes at the end of the day - nobody forces you to watch Sky News. If you don't like it then turn over.
I don't like them, and out of choice, I don't watch them. I watch a lot of other news bulletins though. BBC, CNN, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, CBC, RTE, PBS, many others. Even occasionally watch Fox News, mainly FOX Report.
Without taking in different bulletins from different news media, I wouldn't have a sense of what is objective news and what is not. There are a growing number of sources that are not truly objective. I get a growing sense that Al Jazeera has an agenda, albeit a more geographical one than a political one, whilst Sky News and Fox News and ITV News certainly seem to have political agendas of some sort. Not all are excatly the same, and indeed, Fox News seems somewhat out on the limb. EuroNews has a definite pro-EU agenda, whilst Russia Today and Press TV seem overtly supportive of their inidividual home country's givernments.