Emily Maitless

[spotlighton]

Is that it then, has EM lost her job?
She wasn't on again last night.

[claragolightly]

She hasn't lost her job, thank goodness.

She said yesterday that she asked for the night off on Wednesday, following the furore.

She usually presents the show Mon - Wed so wouldn't have been on air yesterday regardless.

[middleager]

I want to see her back next week. Appalled by the treatment towards her.

[onalongsabbatical]

She took one night off. Don't be diverted from the bigger injustice - that Dominic Cummings is still in his job.

[nolovelost]

What did she do? Sorry I'm a bit behind!

[onalongsabbatical]

nolovelost she intro-ed Newsnight with a scathing summing up of Govt response to Cummings, and got rapped on knuckles for not following BBC impartiality. She then asked for a night off and everyone went bananas because they thought she'd been sacked or pulled from the programme, which proved not to be the case.
She's brilliant, but it's a storm in a teacup compared to Cummings still being employed, IMHO. Hang on I'll try and get a link to the intro she did, it's worth a listen.

[onalongsabbatical]

Here you go. Embedded in an article about it.
metro.co.uk/2020/05/28/what-did-emily-maitlis-say-about-dominic-cummings-why-did-miss-newsnight-12768708/

[nolovelost]

Thanks for that. Yeah she wasn't impartial but didn't really say much wrong! It's a shame they have to stay factual!!

[onalongsabbatical]

Well you know the whole impartiality thing led the BBC to having to give climate change deniers as much time as climate change truth tellers, and they've only just reversed that one, so impartiality is defo not it's all cracked up to be. Besides which it's nothing stronger than say, Paxman, might have said in his day.
I say go Emily, don't stop sticking it to them.

[NotEverythingIsBlackandWhite]

Emily Maitless is meant to impartially report the news and not treat the programme as a forum for representing her own personal opinions. She needs to decide whether she can do that or not. If not, I'm sure she could land another job on a different channel in a role that would enable her to represent her own views.

The BBC is meant to be impartial because of its funding. I'm sure no-one would like it if it was not subject to laws of impartiality and they actively promoted everything the government said in order to secure more funding.

[RainMustFall]

NotEverything is right, presenting the news is an inappropriate occasion to share one's own views. It's unprofessional and there are plenty of other programmes available for that. The BBC is predominantly left wing so I'm not surprised by what she did and frankly them being impartial is a joke..

[spotlighton]

Phew! I didn't realise she was only Mon-Weds, I'm a big fan of the bbc female reporters/presenters and I would hate she to be sacked for saying what we all have been thinking.
The idea that the news can be or is impartial is a lovely idea, up there with Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy, so good for her.

[Louisianna16]

She also has a contractual duty to remain impartial. All BBC journalists have to sign an impartiality Claude.

[Louisianna16]

*clause 😄

[Tr1skel1on]

I think the BBC might be getting the impartial stance right. The left wing people generally think it is biased towards right wing views and vice versa.

The end result is everyone is shouting at the BBC and refusing to pay the license fee.

For me the stand out success reporting during the pandemic has been the Guardian. I normally visit the website for recipies, I didn't expect to stay for excellent current affairs journalism

[Astabarista]

If she wasn’t impartial then Andrew Neil and Jeremy Paxman weren’t many many times.

[MsHeffaPiglet]

Emily Maitless is terrible on Newsnight and I am pleased she was called out on her obvious bias on this occasion.

I much prefer the other presenters on Newsnight, who are much better interviewers than Maitless

[MummyPop00]

Effectively a party political broadcast from Maitlis on behalf of the opposition. Absolutely dreadful. Report the facts only without statements of bias. If you then want opinions, by all means get them - get some politicos on the show to argue contrasting views
in their overt guise as politicos.

In general, licence fee needs to go, BBC needs to get in the real world, it’s an overly bloated anachronism

[Earnsomething]

How was giving DC and hour and a half of air time, plus the half hour he wasted by being late, impartial, if a few seconds summing up the other position wasn't?

I wrote to the BBC in support of EM, they haven't replied .

[MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing]

Journalists must never be impartial about the truth.

[MsSafina]

The most appalling bias from the BBC was when that Canadian journalist (can't remember her name) openly wept when she announced Arafat's death. It's been used ever since as an example of what BBC employees shouldn't do. The BBC is supposed to be impartial and has said Maitless broke those rules. I don't watch that programme to hear a sermon.

[MummyPop00]

Cummings had his over indulgent presser televised yes, but there were plenty of unfavourable questions to him also televised were there not?

[MadameMarie]

I think the BBC might be getting the impartial stance right. The left wing people generally think it is biased towards right wing views and vice versa.

This is the biggest myth.

The BBC is used as a political football by the government of the day (which in a Conservative country is usually the Tories) and are scared to challenge the government. If they do they're threatened with no access to ministers (which Newsnight already have for challenging the government) and further down the line scrapping the license fee and the BBC charter.

Therefore the BBC bosses are scared of pissing off the government. The BBC bosses are coincidentally also handpicked by the government.

The left shout bias when Corbyn was deemed to be not given fair treatment (Kuenssberg gets away with worse than what Maitlis was slapped down for). The Tories shout bias when they're challenged in any way at all.

[MummyPop00]

Idea that the Beeb is afraid of attacking the government is nonsense. Comedy for instance is frequently used as a vehicle to do this and has been since I remember (Thatcher onwards)

[MadameMarie]

@MummyPop The News and Current Affairs output is where the fear is. I'd agree the celebrity aspect of the BBC is quite liberal biased but Corbyn would always get it in the neck too.

[lljkk]

Someone needs to spell out what LK did to upset everyone. I dislike BJ so much that my skin crawls when he speaks but LK has never struck me as biased or fawning over him. It seems like if she's not doing an Andrew Neil routine at him she is up for slaughter. The funny part of that is .... Andrew Neil is a deep blue Tory & probably loves the current govt.

I also hate sermons on the news, tbh. I avoid MSNBC and most of CNN for that now. For me a pause on Maitliss presenting was appropriate & fresh start on Monday.