http://www.heartonpaper-bela.blogspot.com

i found this blog when surfing the web. she’s incredible – just turned 15, a genius. she’s in the process of publishing two books, one poetry, and one a novella. AND she’s been called the “voice of her generation.” no one knows about her site, it’s totally legitimate. comment on her stuff, it’s indescribable.

Her holier than thou on-camera attitude is what in my opinion’s made people disenfranchaised with journalism.

While I am not advocating that she has or should have a duty to strike a balance between two arguments I do believe that on many ocassions, especially during the recent UK election, she has strayed from journalism towards tribal news reporting.

As I explained in my first comment, during my six years of working there (2002-08) I never experienced any pressure to change my journalism to give a particular view, and never heard of this happening to any of my colleagues. By suggesting otherwise, and apparently without any evidence beyond the odd clip culled from YouTube, you are making a pretty serious allegation about the professional standards of all the journalists that work at Sky News, or have worked there in the recent past, including me.

So, you’re going to have to forgive me for not agreeing with you.

*facepalm*

I refer you to my comment above.

On the Boulton/Campbell point, it might be useful to fill in a bit of background. The fact is they simply don’t like each other very much. Boulton was always highly regarded by New Labour (he is now married to Tony Blair’s former aide, Anji Hunter), and was offered Campbell’s job after the 2001 election, which he turned down because he either didn’t fancy it or because they weren’t offering enough money, depending on what you believe.

During that campaign, Sky and Boulton in particular angered Campbell by breaking the story of John Prescott punching that bloke who threw an egg at him, and repeatedly running the footage. It seems Campbell never forgave Boulton for both this and for being lined up for his job, and so they’ve not really got on ever since. On election night, Boulton squared off against Campbell and Ed Balls during Sky’s live coverage after they’d levelled this ‘Boulton is pro-Tory’ slur at him during this election campaign.

I’d say both Boulton and Burley went too far in the incidents which have been highlighted. But it’s live telly, everyone’s a bit over-excited and tired, I’d argue these things sometimes happen. I don’t really see how this can be extrapolated into a pro-Conservative conspiracy.

If the argument runs that Sky News is pro-Tory because Boulton is a Tory (I don’t know what his personal politics are, although he says that he hasn’t voted in an election since 1979), then you could similarly argue that the BBC is pro-Tory because Nick Robinson and Andrew Neil are sympathetic to the Tories, which they have been in their past careers (Robinson as head of the Young Conservatives, Neil as editor of the Tory-supporting Sunday Times for 13 years). But I’d say such an argument would be nonsense. In my opinion those past views can’t be detected in the reporting/presenting of Robinson and Neil, and I’d give Boulton the same credit.

Are you still sure this isn’t getting like Fox news? After months of biased pro-Tory reporting they must be really, really angry that they are not in yet

http://www.twitvid.com/TXCUG