Monday 20 June 2016

Being Katty about Boris




Katty Kay, the face of the BBC in the USA (the "Anchor for BBC World News America"), has - as so often before - failed to show herself to be the complete paragon of BBC impartiality with her latest BBC website piece: Five reasons Brexit could signal Trump winning the White House.

As proof of that, I think it's enough merely to quote the first paragraph of her closing 'reason':
Populism 
And, finally, populism loves simplicity, especially, it seems, when it's dressed up with an impressively wacky hair do. Boris Johnson and Donald Trump appeal to the heart not the head. They offer simple solutions in a time of complex problems. It's an appealing message. Think about the complicated consequences later, the thinking seems to go, for now protesting the status quo feels like a good start. 
Could she be any more contemptuous? Or biased?

Is that really the way a senior BBC journalist should be writing about Boris Johnson during a referendum where even stricter BBC editorial guidelines on impartiality are meant to apply to all BBC journalists (including her)? 

3 comments:

  1. Since when did Katty Kay react to anything other than appeals to the heart? She's pure emotion and zero reason.

    As for the bias charge, it will be dismissed as 'analysis' rather than taking sides. Also, I once had a complaint about her summarily dismissed because she is in the US and is under the responsibility of Worldwide, and technically doesn't report on British domestic issues.

    She's one of the elite, and can do no wrong.

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  3. I have never seen Katty Kay, but the term "populism" has cropped up incessantly during the Referendum campaign. Could there really be a more patronising expression? Could anything sum up the general attitude at the BBC towards the general public more aptly?

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