Sky News last night closed down its website’s discussion boards claiming that debate on the platform had been reduced to “meaningless abuse”.
In a post Simon Bucks said that although the boards were “very popular” they had been hijacked by a small number of people.
At Sky News we welcome robust debate about the news, but we want it to be of a high standard. I am afraid that too often on the discussion boards threads which started intelligently would degenerate into mindless name calling.
If you want to contribute to the broad debate, you can still post comments on news stories and on blogs. In addition we intend to run more web chats like the ones last week with our correspondents Alex Crawford and Stuart Ramsay and will develop other ways of allowing intelligent debate about current events.
To those who used the discussion forums sensibly and did not abuse them, or other users, I can only apologise. A small number of people have spoiled it for the majority.
At the end of last week, news broke that think-tank MigrationWatch had threatened political commentator Sally Bercow with libel action following comments she made on Sky News in August about a Daily Express story on migration.
Her comments reportedly included reference to what she perceived as the oversimplification of arguments made in the article, which included statistics from MigrationWatch, adding that the story was “fairly dangerous propaganda”, based on case documents posted by author Richard Wilson on his blog.
According to a release from the Libel Reform Campaign, Bercow, who is the wife of House of Commons speaker John Bercow, received a letter from MigrationWatch’s chairman Sir Andrew Green’s solicitors demanding an apology and legal costs as a result of her comments.
Yesterday lawyer David Allen Green announced on his ‘Jack of Kent’ blog that he had been instructed to act in Bercow’s defence to any libel action. Discussing the context of the case he said the current state of free expression is “depressing”.
But our ‘banning’ culture in respect of free expression is not inevitable and can be reversed; there is no good reason why the first reaction of so many people to unwelcome statements is to get the law involved, and then there is no good reason for so many police officers, judges, and officials to allow them to do so.
(…) Sally Bercow could have just quietly apologised, perhaps with the pre-prepared humble apology which was attached to the threatening letter. But she chose not to do so. She has chosen instead to make a stand for her right as a political commentator to respond to news stories in the way she did. She wants to show how threats like this to political commentators – and also journalists – support the need for libel reform.
The case has also been highlighted by the Libel Reform Campaign as what they claim is “proof” of the need for defamation law reform. A new defamation bill is already expected to be drafted in 2011 by the government. Jo Glanville, editor of the Index on Censorship added:
MigrationWatch should not be using our libel laws to silence criticism of their approach over immigration. Sally Bercow now faces the same ordeal as Simon Singh with potentially bankrupting costs, years of her life wasted in Court, all for expressing an opinion. It really presses home just how important the coalition’s pledge of a libel reform bill is.
MigrationWatch had no further comment to make at this time.
Video from Sky News showing how it put together its coverage of Gordon Brown’s resignation and the post-election coalition talks between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
It is the 100 metres of the TV Factual Olympics. General election night. The three main news broadcasters – BBC, ITN and Sky News – vie to get results to the nation first. A month on, the election editors of Sky News and the BBC appeared at last night’s Media Society event in London entitled ‘Who won the TV election?‘
The BBC won the greater share of the audience on 6 May. They always do. But John McAndrew, editor of the Sky News offering was there to claim journalistic credit for being not just first but clearest on screen. His was deliberately not a heavily studio anchored show: “We knew what the BBC would do and we aimed off for that,” McAndrew said. He had surprising support from one member of the audience – the BBC’s former political correspondent Nicholas Jones. Jones had switched over early. Sky News, McAndrew said, went with plenty of straight news and little comment.
The David Dimbleby programme on the BBC was at the other end of the spectrum. There were virtual reality graphics aplenty from Jeremy Vine and scores of outside broadcasts. Craig Oliver, their editor, was at last night’s event to defend their coverage, or at least try to. He had a near impossible job when it came to the now notorious ‘ship of fools‘, a BBC barge moored in the Thames full of celebrities giving their take on the election. Not many of those at the event felt that Joan Collins or Bruce Forsyth ‘added to the sum total of human knowledge’, as one audience member succinctly put it. Another pointed out that the £70,000 allegedly spent on the boat (the only cost figure mentioned on a night when all were coy about what they spent) was money wasted.
Oliver was on surer ground defending the BBC position of not calling any result until the Returning Officer had. ITN seems to jump the gun almost as a matter of principle. Oliver, who edited the ITN election programme in 2005 before defecting, was dismissive of presenter Alastair Stewart’s recent tirade in the Press Gazette claiming that the BBC ‘had missed the story’. His absence from the discussion said it all according to Oliver.
Channel 4’s ‘Alternative Election Night’ – featuring comedians like Jimmy Carr and David Mitchell – was a deliberately offpiste offering but it worked, beating ITN in the ratings. Deputy head of news and current affairs Kevin Sutcliffe was there to explain the thinking behind the format and reveal that it would be used again. Their satirical approach attracted a young demographic and twice the audience he expected, Sutcliffe said, adding that he was impressed with the (unintentionally) satirical quality of the BBC coverage.
Attracting the most audience comment last night was the stunningly accurate exit poll shared by the broadcasters and put out on the stroke of ten. It got the result right to within one seat. Some felt it destroyed the drama and made the remainder of the coverage predictable, suggesting a return to separate polls. Sue Inglish, the BBC’s head of political programmes and a moving force behind the poll, was on hand to explain and defend. The sheer size and cost of the 125,000 sample poll made it impossible to do more than once. But Oliver, in a mild mea culpa, said the BBC studio gurus had been wrong to downplay the surprising exit poll results for the first hour after they were broadcast.
The event had the air of an inquest, but not a particularly rancourous one – and the majority of criticism was reserved for the absent ITN. There was mostly praise for the British broadcasters for whom a 100-metre dash became a five day marathon. If the reaction in the BBC Council Chamber last night is anything to go, they had an audience satisfied with the results.
John Mair is events director of the Media Society.This event was jointly organised by the Media Society and the BBC College of Journalism
It is an event producer’s nightmare. You book three big speakers, and they pull out with two hours to go. Reader, that was my nightmare on Tuesday.
Five day after polls had closed and Britain was still without a government. I had the general election editors of the BBC, Sky News and the editor in chief of ITN all set to go head-to-head on ‘Who won on TV?’ at Westminster University for a Media Society debate. The debate looked promising until Gordon Brown decided he had to go and would be replaced by David Cameron that very night. The broadcast editors decided they had better, well, broadcast.
Fortunately, the audience was nearly as distinguished as the panel, and veteran media commentator Raymond Snoddy and Professor Ivor Gaber were recruited to join Dorothxy Byrne, head of news and current affairs at Channel Four. They were joined by the doyen of political documentary makers, Michael Cockerell, and were under the watchful eye of ex-Sky News editor Nick Pollard, who chaired the debate.
The televised leaders’ debates came to dominate the election campaign and they very nearly dominated discussion on Tuesday night. Given the tight rules laid down by the politicians in advance, many claimed ‘debate’ was something of a misnomer. David Hill, Tony Blair’s ex-spin doctor, felt anything was better than the bear pit Question Time had become in the 2005 election. The audience at Westminster felt that broadcasters ITN, Sky and the BBC had too easily rolled over and accepted the preconditions laid down for them. The BBC was largely felt to have produced the best of the three debates thanks to the magisterial presence of David Dimbleby.
There was a different opinion of Dimbleby on the BBC Election night programme though. Some felt he looked tired and over-rehearsed, and a little lost in the behemoth of a set. While admiring his stamina, at least one person remarked on his miscall of a couple of swings. Jeremy Vine and his virtual reality graphics show divided the audience as did, inevitably, the Jeremy Paxman experience.
It seems that the BBC got it mostly right, but very wrong in one case in particular, namely the ‘Ship of Fools’, a barge on the Thames full of celebrities being quizzed about the results. The political opinions of Bruce Forsyth and Joan Collins were both predictable and irrelevant on a night of high drama. Nobody defended the ship. Clearly a wrong move.
As to network alternatives on the night, both ITN and Sky were seen as sharper and quicker than the BBC, partly because they got to the locked-out voters story earlier. In terms of set design and presentation though, there was no match for the BBC.
Where all the networks scored was in putting the newspapers in their place. The printed press was following the agenda in this election not leading it. Nowhere was this seen better than the live interruption of our debate to show the Gordon Brown resignation statement live from Downing Street. That moment really summed up this year’s election coverage – fast, exciting, and on television.
But according to Sky News, which issued this statement yesterday evening, Boulton was “strongly” defending his – and Sky News’- journalistic integrity:
In the course of an interview outside Westminster this afternoon [10 May], Sky News political editor Adam Boulton defended his integrity and, by implication, Sky News’, against an attack by Alastair Campbell.
Mr Campbell had said, “You’ve been spending the last four years saying Gordon Brown is dead meat and he should be going anyway.” Adam Boulton strongly defended his impartiality, saying “I’m not saying that, show me where I said that once.”
Mr. Campbell went on to say, “You’re obviously upset that David Cameron is not Prime Minister” to which Adam replied, “I’m not upset, you are, you keep casting aspersions.”
When challenged by Adam Boulton to substantiate his assertions, Mr Campbell failed to provide any evidence.
I was somewhat taken aback to be the only Labour figure trending on twitter an hour or so after the announcement and the reason – Adam Boulton – was trending all night. Justin Bieber eat your heart out.
Adam gets very touchy at any suggestion that he is anything other than an independent, hugely respected, totally impartial and very important journalist whose personal views never see the light of day, and who works for an organisation that is a superior form of public service than anything the BBC can deliver.
Boulton’s Wikipedia page has already been edited to include the incident, with a certain amount of creativity. ‘Falling of Love: The End of My marriage to Alistair Campbell (2010) Simon & Garfunkel’ seems an unlikely source for the entry.
The transcript (issued by Sky News):
JEREMY THOMPSON:
I’m joined here in Westminster by Alastair Campbell, good evening to you. A lot of people trying to make head or tail of what the Prime Minister said, your colleagues say it’s a dignified and statesman like offering from him, those on the other side of the House saying it is a blatant piece of party gamesmanship and has nothing to do with dignity.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Well it is. I think it brings sense to this very, very complicated and difficult situation which the election result threw up. No party won, no party leader got a very clear mandate. The Tories got most seats, they got the biggest share of the vote and the options remain a minority Tory government, some sort of deal between the Tories and the Liberals and they can carry on their discussions with that but what’s happened today is that Nick Clegg has indicated to Gordon Brown that there may be sense in actually a discussion developing, there has actually been behind the scenes discussions going on but a proper policy based discussion developing between Labour and the Liberal Democrats to see whether the basis for a coalition government can be formed and I think actually a lot of people will feel that’s not a bad …if that materialises is not a bad outcome for this election. Let’s just go back a bit where we were …
JEREMY THOMPSON:
Do you think that’s what the British people really voted for?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Well they certainly voted for change of some sort, no doubt about that … let me finish, they voted for change of some sort …
ADAM BOULTON:
I thought you wanted to have a discussion.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
No, I wanted to answer Jeremy’s question if I may.
ADAM BOULTON:
Oh right.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
They want a change of some sort, they did not go for David Cameron despite the utterly slavish media support that he got, despite all the money from Lord Ashcroft and his friends, despite the fact that we’d had the recession and so forth, they didn’t really want Cameron. There obviously has been, Gordon accepts that there was also …
JEREMY THOMPSON:
Well this was their least worst option. They certainly didn’t give Gordon Brown an endorsement did they?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
What I said was no party leader and no party won.
ADAM BOULTON:
Let’s just look at the facts of the election. In the election you take three main parties …
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Yes.
ADAM BOULTON:
… there is one party that lost both in terms of share of the vote and seats, that is Labour. There is one party that is behind the Conservatives and on top of that we have now got a Prime Minister who wants to stay on for four months but is saying he is going to resign in four months time. Now none of that, with all due respect Alastair Campbell, can be seen as a vote of confidence by the voters in the Labour party.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
But nobody is saying that it is, in fact that’s the whole point …
ADAM BOULTON:
But you’re saying nobody won, what I’m saying is if you just look at the results there is a party that is clearly not …
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
What you are saying though, look David Cameron didn’t do that much better than some of his predecessors but I accept he got more seats and a bigger share of the vote but my point is …
ADAM BOULTON:
A much bigger share of the vote.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Right, okay, but my point is that constitutionally …
ADAM BOULTON:
And the second point if I can just …
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Can I answer the first point?
ADAM BOULTON:
The second point is if you put together the percentages of the vote or the parliamentary seats a Lib-Lab combination doesn’t do it.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
No, you’d then have to look at other parties …
ADAM BOULTON:
It doesn’t have a majority so …
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
But nor has a minority Tory government.
ADAM BOULTON:
Yes, but a Lib-Conservative coalition clearly has got a majority and a majority of seats.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
And that may happen, and that may happen, all that’s happened today …
ADAM BOULTON:
Well why not do what Malcolm Wickes says and just go quietly, accept that you lost this election? Why not do what David Blunkett says and accept that you lost this election?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Because I don’t think that would be the right thing to do because I don’t think that is the verdict that the public delivered.
ADAM BOULTON:
What, national interest is what you are seriously thinking about in this?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Yes, it is actually, yes.
ADAM BOULTON:
The nation needs four more months of Gordon Brown limping on until he retires?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Adam, I know that you’ve been spending the last few years saying Gordon Brown is dead meat and he should be going anyway …
ADAM BOULTON:
I’m not saying that, show me where I said that once.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Adam, I don’t want to …
ADAM BOULTON:
But are you saying in the national interest what the nation needs is four more months of Gordon Brown and then resign having lost an election?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
I am saying, I am saying there are three options. One is a Tory minority … none of the are perfect, one is a Tory minority government. That would be perfectly legitimate, okay. It wouldn’t be terribly stable, it might not last very long but it is legitimate. The second is a Lib-Tory deal either …
ADAM BOULTON:
It could be stable.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
… which could be stable but what’s absolutely clear Adam, you can’t tell the Liberal Democrats to do things they don’t want to do.
ADAM BOULTON:
I’m not telling anybody to do anything.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
But you’re sort of saying it is an easy option for them and it’s not and what’s coming through loud and clear from a lot of the Liberal Democrats is that their activists and their supporters are saying, hold on a minute, we did not vote to get you to put David Cameron in power, we voted to stop that happening.
ADAM BOULTON:
Did they vote to keep Gordon Brown in power?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
They voted …
ADAM BOULTON:
Did they vote to keep Gordon Brown in power?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
No, they didn’t and Gordon has accepted that today which is why…
ADAM BOULTON:
Exactly, so on that basis you …
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
What does he do, what does he do? Just sort of says here you go, David Cameron come on in, you didn’t actually get the vote you should have done, you didn’t get the majority you said you were going to do …
ADAM BOULTON:
He got a lot more votes and seats than he did.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Yes, I know, you’re obviously upset that David Cameron is not Prime Minister.
ADAM BOULTON:
I’m not upset, you are, you keep casting aspersions and …
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Calm down.
ADAM BOULTON:
I am commenting, don’t keep saying what I think.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
This is live on television.
JEREMY THOMPSON:
Alastair, Alastair …
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Dignity, dignity.
ADAM BOULTON:
Don’t keep telling me what I think, this is what you do, you come on and you say you haven’t won the election …
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Jeremy …
ADAM BOULTON:
… you talk to me, I’m fed up with you telling me what I think, I don’t think that.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
I don’t care what you’re fed up with, you can say what you like. I can tell you my opinion …
ADAM BOULTON:
Don’t tell me what I think.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
I will tell you why I think you are reacting so badly.
JEREMY THOMPSON:
Alastair, you are being a bit provocative here and unnecessarily so.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Well sometimes politics is about passionate things.
JEREMY THOMPSON:
I understand that.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
He is saying Gordon Brown is no longer legitimately in Downing Street, I’m saying he is. He is.
ADAM BOULTON:
No, I’m saying look at the performances in the elections, Labour did worse than the Conservatives, will you accept that?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
I know. They got more seats, of course they did, the Tories go more seats…
ADAM BOULTON:
So you do accept it?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Yes. Equally Gordon Brown is constitutionally perfectly entitled to be Prime Minister and …
JEREMY THOMPSON:
Alastair, just tell me how …
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Let me finish this point. He has managed this situation I think perfectly properly. He has today announced he will not be the Prime Minister …
ADAM BOULTON:
Can I ask you a simple question?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Yes.
ADAM BOULTON:
Why hasn’t he had a Cabinet meeting before making this offer?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
He is about to have a Cabinet meeting now.
ADAM BOULTON:
Yes, but now he has made the offer, what can the Cabinet do, why haven’t you had a meeting with the parliamentary Labour party like the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives have had?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
He’s having one tomorrow, he’s having one tomorrow.
JEREMY THOMPSON:
Gentlemen, gentlemen.
ADAM BOULTON:
In other words it’s you, totally unelected have plotted this with …
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Me?
ADAM BOULTON:
Yes. You are happiest speaking about him …
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
That’s because the Ministers are going to a Cabinet meeting …
ADAM BOULTON:
He has got a parliamentary party, you’re the one that cooked it up, you’re the one that’s cooked it up with Peter Mandelson.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
Oh my God, unbelievable. Adam, calm down.
JEREMY THOMPSON:
Gentlemen, gentlemen, let this debate carry on later. Let’s just remind you that Gordon Brown said a few minutes ago…
ADAM BOULTON:
I actually care about this country.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
You think I don’t care about it, you think I don’t care about it.
ADAM BOULTON:
I don’t think the evidence is there.
JEREMY THOMPSON:
… let’s listen to Gordon Brown’s statement.
March is so serious about its value that he is making social media literacy an objective on his digital media staff’s performance reviews. “I want to see social media become a part of the fabric of the day-to-day work,” he said.
Speaking at a discussion on the future of online video this morning, the Financial Times’ lead product manager Stephen Pinches coined a new concept for me: that of the “publisher-broadcaster”. Connected TV – the idea of internet-connected television sets or set-top boxes – will take publishers further into the broadcast realm, beyond video produced for websites and hopefully to create a more engaging experience for users by providing text, video and opportunities for interaction tailored to fit a front room setting.
On Monday 8 March, it’s International Women’s Day, a global day “celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future,” partnered by Thomson Reuters.
To mark the occasion, Sky News is having a day of female-led broadcasting. The broadcaster announced:
“From sunrise to midnight, the news channel will be presented and produced exclusively by women in support of the globally renowned day, which honours the economic, political and social achievements of women with hundreds of events around the world.”
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today called on media owners “to take steps to raise women’s profile in the news, both as professionals and as news topics,” ahead of its survey to be released in Bahrain on Monday.
“The situation is deplorable,” said Aidan White, IFJ general secretary. “Media organisations remain dominated by men the world over. Women must be given equal access to leadership. When that happens it will create a sea change in the news agenda and the way media professionals are treated.”
Here at Journalism.co.uk (where the editorial staff is predominantly female anyway), we thought it might be fun to host some themed comment on our blog. If you (male or female!) have a relevant post you’re burning to write, please let us know and we can publish it here – or link to your site/blog. Please contact judith [at] journalism.co.uk or leave a comment below.
Which parts of the industry are particularly male-dominated? Does it matter?
Has online technology helped balance the gender-split?
What would you like to see change within the industry?
What are your observations of male-female divide in the workplace?
