Adam Boulton: good reporter, s**t presenter?

Just watching The Boulton Factor on Sky News, and am I the only one who thinks he is good at his normal day job as Political Editor, but completely **** as a presenter?

He fumbles with his words and constantly interrupts guests unnecesarily (even non-politcos like journalists and analysts). He always looks uncomfortable reading from an autocue, whether it be live or recorded.

Boulton certainly isn't the best at reading from autocue - he's definately one of those where "no script" means he performs at his best. Great reporter though - certainly one of the best in the industry.

I don't know if anyone remembers this, but in 1999 I seem to remember that he hosted some sort of "chat/performance" show, "Adam Boulton meets..." whoever. It usually ran at around 7pm? On one particular occassion the guests featured included the choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo - Boulton interrupted the lead singer/founder at least 4 times and even performed his own dance steps, saying "Oh, I believe this is your way of dancing" and repeating himself on many occasions.

I wasn't watching very closely, but I thought tonight's programme was spoilt slightly by the messy joins between the live and pre-recorded bits.

It was 'Tonight' on Sky News. It was every Friday night and had lots of famous people - serious and not so serious - on it.

In fairness to Boulton, I think he is one of the best interviewers in a one-to-one situation, when questions need to be answered properly. Paxman just gets really shirty when someone avoids the question, Boulton seems to get very clever and replies with some shocking statistic.

But he isn't a presenter by any stretch.

It would probably work better if they had the sort of thing that PBS Newshour does, or CBC did with the Journal in the 90s... a presenter and an interviewer.

This is probably the main reason Julie will be presenting the main election show.

I watched to the end of "The Factor" for the first time on Thursday night.

Foxification has arrived.

I couldn't believe he allowed himself to call the show "The Factor" and then go on to give his "Final Thought" about Rover. Sure not as controversial as O'Reilly, but frankly inappropriate for anyone who wants to chief political correspondent of a news organisation.

Boulton's a journo, O'Reilly isn't....if this is the way of Sky News post-relaunch, its viewing figures may go down. It looks like Pollard's finally lost his battle too.

I caught the tail end of last night's "Factor", and thought it was rather messy - Adam asking his guests to sum up in 10 seconds each, then realising he had a bit more time, then trying to pad, and realising that he in fact didn't have time to finish his spiel, so shoulted a hasty sign-off. Then there was a sting, and Boulton back on screen in a pre-recorded segment.

My flatmate commented that it was very Jerry Springer.

Whilst I still think the Pollard comments are bizarre -- you would end up with someone even more in line with the Fox-model if he were replaced, I do hope you realise that -- and will ignore them, you're right about the final thought thing.

It isn't as controversial... he made a point of saying ''All the main parties agree on that'', as if to cover his back, but if it isn't going to be controversial then what the hell is the point?

To be honest, though, they are still a long way from Fox. I don't mind so much if they want to have commentary like that - preferably from people who aren't correspondents - as long as it doesn't intrude into the main news coverage. I cannot imagine them doing that.

And lets be honest, who on earth currently working for Sky News could honestly be called a raging facist?

I don't think "The Boulton Factor" is anything new. I'm pretty sure it was around during the 2001 election - although I may be mistaken.

It was around last time, I remember it got quite a lot of praise in 2001. Calling anything "The Factor" now is taboo, but it had the same name in 2001, when Fox was far less notorious.