Kay Birley from Sky News, should she go also?

[kittya]

I wouldnt normally watch Sky News but whilst I was on here talking about Nick Clegg I could here this bullying woman interview a guy that was leading the demo on Saturday. I thought she was well out of order and then, I was looking at the Guardian online and apparently there is a call for her on facebook and twitter to resign or be sacked. Did anyone else catch it and what do you think to her in general?

I would imagine he got more vague because he was shocked about her interview tactics. I would have burst into tears or walked off shouting, "You BITCH" if she had talked to me like that.

And of course the guy who was shouting "Sack Kay Burley" during her interview was unreasonable, but two wrongs still don't make her actions acceptable.

Last time i looked, Eammon Holmes IS a heavyweight news anchor.

....In an interview in February 2008 Burley asked the wife of Suffolk serial killer Steve Wright: "Do you think if you'd had a better sex life he wouldn't have done this?"....

The sound on my computer wouldn't go high enough to hear any sacking calls!

Come to think of it, MmeLindt, she got more vague incoherent as the exchange progressed, too! Her voice certainly rose in pitch - sure sign of stress, that.

It's a real shame the interview went that way; it could have been really interesting, because it's a good question: are the protesters on the side of democracy (urging the leadership not to do an unequal deal, when it is clear there is little consensus in the country) or are they trying to exert pressure out of proportion to their numbers (anti-proportional representation, if you like!)?

Oh, my God! BigBadMummy, she can't have said that!

Okay, she is stupid. And vicious. Bad combination.

But that's not even good news sense! It's an irrelevant question (let the wife take some flak for a serial killer's actions?! distract attention from the issue? not ask something which produce some meaning, such as whether he had shown any sign of this, or at least whether she had ever felt scared of him!)

I would be sacking a lunatic like this if I were her editors. What happened to doing your job, asking normal questions which need answering instead of getting distracted by weird little fantasies?

She came across as aggressive...perhaps that's because a woman, if she was Jezza she would have got away with it.

Hate hate hate Sky news.

if I were her editor. Sorry.

beenbeta - "Lets also not pretend that march for PR was spontaneous. It was nothing more than a completely orchestrated manouevre by the left to put pressure on Nick Clegg and stop him coming to an agreement with Cameron."

Actually, it was organised by 38 degrees which campaigns on a variety of political/human rights issues.

Do you think KB was right to say '65% of the electorate voted for a hung parliament' even once, never mind 400 times?

BBm

I think Ms Burley began by trying to portray herself as a hard-hitting journalist, but somewhere along the way just decended into vitriolic spitefulness. I couldn't watch more than a few minutes of her before switching over (to protect my blood pressure).
I think Catherine Tate could do for her what Tina Fey has done for Sarah Palin.

Didn't she once punch another female journalist in the face for moving in front of her in a media scrum? I'm sure I read that somewhere.

Sorry, I was wrong!

Just looked it up. A photographer punched her then she grabbed them around the throat. Both as bad as each other IMO.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/3205723/TVs-Kay-Burley-takes-break-after-falling-i ll.html

I know who 38 degrees are and I also note that Will Straw (Jacks Straw's son) who is Editor of Left Foot Forward blog was at the protest as were people like Billy Bragg.

As I say, people on the left. See report of the protest here.

Yes I know the link is the Daily Mail and no I do not read it.

If a male had levelled such aggression at a female in an interview the bloke would never work again.It was noticable on election night Sky shipped her off to deepest Scotland where she would do the least damage.

I agree with Posieparker. If KB had've been Jezza, I don't think there would have been half so much fuss about it, and I said as much to my DP last night.

Having said that, I'm no fan of KB.

Exactly. If it had been Paxman quite rightly giving the Head of a right leaning campaign group a hard time I dont suppose anyone at that demonstration or anyone twittering or on this thread or teh Guardian would be calling for his head - quite likley celebrating it I suspect.

Some people on the left don't quite seem to get it yet. Labour got hammered at this election and the two other main parties with a clear majority of the votes and the seats are on cusp of signing a historic agreement wich wil involve some kind of electoral reform. To suddenly be all for PR after 13 years in office under FPTP is a bit rich.

Some people in the Labour Party do get it though. Times have changed. They want to go into opposition and regroup and rethink. Frankly, I would like Lib Dems to become a major party in the UK. I like a lot of what they had to say. I also like the fact that David Cameron appears ready accept their suggestion of a £10k tax free allowance for low paid people. It is something I have writen about on here several times. I would like a good few of the Labour Party MPs that do get it and that I have a lot of respect for to also join a truely progressive modern centre left party around the nucleaus of the Lib Dems. We would not need PR then - we would have a clear choice of two main parties plus other smaller parties in Sotland, Wales, NI.

The people in that demonstration were wrong and Kay Burley was right to ask tough questions.

Oh my god. I'd never heard of her but I'm at her sheer crapness.

65% voted for a hung parliament? Good god, how stupid do you have to be. People voted for the party they supported!

BeenBeta, of course she can ask tough questions, but as a pro she should be able to listen to the answer and respond accordingly.

Do you think KB was right to say '65% of the electorate voted for a hung parliament' even once, never mind 400 times?

I think Jeremy Paxman is equally as odious when he keeps on and on asking the same question. Puerile.

He does strike me as being much a bit more intelligent overall though.

"This an (sic) organised campaign from the left to put pressure on Sky"

Ooh is it? Where do I join up?

OP - I cannot bear the way she looks at the camera with her head cocked to one side.

I want to shout at the screen "Hold your bloody head up straight woman"

Isn't she the one who asked the serial killer guy's wife about whether better sex would have stopped him?

She's rude and unprofessional and crucially for me, she doesn't hide her own political leanings. I'd feel exactly the same if she was on the left.

When you listen to Andrew Marr, you don't get a clear realisation that he's on the left nor is it obvious that Nick Robinson was once chair of the Young Conservatives. Nobody expects her not to hold her own political views but there's no question she lets them influence her job. Just nasty!

Oh, just realised the Steve Wright's wife stuff had already been mentioned. Sorry!

brogan2

I prefer commentators who wear their political allegiances on their sleeves - but overall, to have enough people of different political stripes that balance is achieved.

This is Sky's approach.

The BBC's approach to balance is instead to pretend that none of its people have political views. It makes the output boring and tepid.

And for what it's worth, I don't think Kay Burley is hugely biased one way or another. She is just monumentally incompetent.

For an example of a non-political interview, watch her ask the most crass questions possible of Peter Andre:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6tnxz18sFI

Is she the one who, when reporting 9/11 said 'The entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States has been decimated.'