Sky News: Presenters & Rotas

I think that is one of the bigger problems presenters have just become much too opinionated recently. They used to just report the facts but increasingly we see their views and them giving us their take on a story often looking down on people from their high horse but don't like any form of criticism against them. It was sad on sky news raw when Adam said about the daily abuse he gets but he really does himself no favours by his general attitude and the way in which he interviews people by constantly interrupting, aggressive tone and trying to put words in peoples mouths. I agree that people need to be challenged on what they say but you can do it in a nicer more respectful way. most other presenters do not get the level of abuse he gets and that's because most presenters don't irritate people like he does

I felt in the day after the referendum Adam Boulton and Anna Botting in particular were furious with the result and the former has struggled to hide it since. when there is talk of no brexit at all you see both of them get quite excitable. Nobody else here agrees with me and maybe as I'm a leave voter I'm seeing something that is not there but I am yet to see anyone accuse Adam on Twitter of being biased in favour of leave so I don't think we can all be wrong. A couple of weeks ago when there was talk of a long extension Adam was struggling to stop himself smiling throughout the programme and the thought of revoking was exciting too. he would keep saying to guests with a smile we could revoke. then when a threat of a no deal was still there 2 days later he was much more downbeat and aggressive. Journalists generally need to start hiding their personal views more like they used to do

incompetent "middle class self indulgent people who want to tell us how to live our lives" could sum up a journalist or 2 mentioning no names

Personally I'd say you're reading far too much into people's facial expressions just to try and figure out their political persuasion.

While I wasn’t with Jayne Secker on her comments, I would come down on the side of Adam on this occasion (not that I always do!). I think he hit on something around the democratic values of the group and made some very valid points which the guest didn’t really tackle.

Sounds like Comcast needs to shake things up. It’s a loss losing venture and they have to fund it for 10 years (or was that Disney only) why not change things around?

Whatever you may think of JHBs views it is plain wrong to include her in a list of unprofessional nobodies who are overused. Julia is pretty openly right of centre but has never behaved even slightly less than completely appropriately while on air and always gives a decent interview which is more than can be said for people like Owen Jones (I'd say the same thing about Susie Boniface before you try and call me a right wing nazi).

Julia Hartley-Brewer, and the other people on that list, were not refered to as being unprofessional nobodies. They are for the most part, just talking heads, and in that sense, I agree with BFGArmy. They have little credibility on any particular subject, and they do seem to appear a lot more than people who genuinely do have insight and expertise on any given subject matter. JHB especially so, given the fact that she works for Sky News' sister radio station, TalkRadio, as their breakfast presenter. There is a place for talking heads, but Sky do tend to overuse them.

JHB brands herself as a political commentator, rather than a political reporter so she can kind of hang her opinion on her sleeve a bit more than likes of Bolton does/should.

Sky have recently introduced the Sky Views push notification every day. So i think Sky News is prehaps moving into a more analytical style for it's journalists and presenters.

Yes, you need to watch the entire interview, I notice the clip Owen Jones (who is he by the way, am I supposed to know ?) posted on Twitter starts at the point Boulton goes all Basil Fawlty and talks about fascists.

Boulton came out of it overall better than the interviewee, who wasn't really articulate enough to construct any form of argument. There was an interview on BBC Breakfast this morning with another spokesperson, she was better as an interviewee, and Charlie Stayt did his best, but she basically couldn't seem to make any compelling case for their actions. Charlie simply (and quite rightly) did his best to ask, and let the viewer decide what validity the arguments put forward had.

There is no longer any direct ownership between Sky News and talkRADIO. Sky being owned by Comcast and talkRADIO being owned by Murdoch's News UK subsidiary Wireless. The only tenuous connection is Sky have a contract to provide copy for their stations.

While I definitely don't think he should be presenting, think there's still a place for Boulton in a 'special correspondent/contributor' role (eg; similiar to Tom Brokaw's role for NBC) whereby he would appear on a semi-regular basis to contribute to their coverage of big political events

I’d agree with that, there’s no doubt about Adam’s experience and ability to analyse and commentate on political events however I’d also take Adam off the presenter schedule. I’m not sure we can plan as far as ‘after Brexit’ as perhaps All Out Politics wouldn’t be needed then or reduced to an hour anyway but even for now I’d introduce Niall Patterson to that show and have Gamal or Sam Washington with Sarah-Jane on Sunrise.