Daisy Sampson: Just a bad journalist?

After doing a job on Charles Kennedy, she then did one on Tony Blair. Shows just how the standards of ITN have come down in appointing her to such a senior reporting position.

ITV News rebuked for misreporting Blair interview

Owen Gibson, media correspondent
Tuesday February 27, 2007
The Guardian


Media watchdogs rebuked ITV News yesterday for inaccurate reporting when it asserted last year that the prime minister's faith had played a part in his decision to go to war in Iraq.
Based on an interview with Michael Parkinson to be aired the following night, ITV's two main evening news bulletins led on an exchange they claimed showed Tony Blair's faith had been a significant factor in his decision to go to war and that he would be judged by God for doing so.

Complainants to Ofcom said he had done no such thing on the programme, aired last March, and claimed ITV's interpretation could be inflammatory and provoke racial and religious tensions.
The assertion was disputed because of the indeterminate nature of the exchange between Parkinson and Mr Blair. During the key passage, they talked over one another and punctuated their conversation with various deviations, interventions and stock phrases.

But ITV said it was reasonable to assume that although Mr Blair initially said he "didn't want to go into" the question, when he later said "yeah" and "of course" during the flow of his rambling answer, it was enough to link God to the decision.

The broadcaster admitted some aspects of its reporting of the story had been "wrong" and that its chief political correspondent, Daisy Sampson, should have been "clearer" and made it obvious that the prime minister's comments were open to interpretation. But it maintained that the broad thrust of the story was correct.

After studying a transcript, Ofcom said: "ITV News reported as fact its interpretation of the interview Tony Blair gave the Parkinson show, when the interview was, at the very least, ambiguous and open to a number of differing interpretations."

I don't in all honesty think that the standards at ITN have fallen. I also think that many of the assumptions made were what everyone else was laughing about. ITN got an RTS award for the Charles Kennedy report ( I think Scoop of the year), and also received many more.

If we are to question standards then I think the Guardian's have fallen because ever since Daisy joined ITN she has used her married name Daisy McAndrew.

i do think ITV have a tendency to push the simplistic, sensational approach to their reporting. It's bound to result in incidents like this.

Personally, I don't think ITN's standards have fallen as that god-awful woman should by no means represent the corporation. I am astounded that they should let her enter the studio to read the news as she has no credibility whatsoever after the whole Kennedy debarkle. The ''blonde assassin'' as she has been branded, should have been thrown out when she gave birth. Is there even such thing as a bad journalist? They're all after one thing; a scoop, and Daisy got that. It's just a shame it caused her credibility to be thrown into question.

There's so many dodgy reasons why Tony Blair went to war in Iraq - possibly religion wasn't the main one, but it is hardly lowering him the estimation of right thinking members of society (the old traditional definition of defamation) to suggest so.

Incidentally, if I remember rightly from that interview, Daisy's interpretation was the exact same as mine. And I remember a lot of other people having the same view.

Beyond that, if it wasn't faith, was it because he's a moron?

Maybe she's a devotee of the FOX News Channel where some journalists mix fact with opinion.