From what I've seen, Bryant was absolutely out-of-order and glad to see that's the consensus here. Can't stand the man. He's odious.
I'm not really interested if there's a consensus of opinion - I think her track record speaks for itself.
But I would be fascinated to know why you feel he was out of order for bringing her to task for her outrageous editorialising of events in the first interview.
She was *so* wrong its laughable - and when he questioned why she had drawn the conclusions she had, she suggested she was "playing devil's advocate".
In the case of her allegiance to Rupert Mudoch, that's the most fitting description I've heard - right from the horse's mouth.
But do go on...
My own personal view of this incident is based entirely on the fact that I think, irrespective of a news presenter's talents or lack thereof, politicians should not resort to mudslinging and demanding apologies for interviews which happened months ago and the majority of viewers will doubtless probably not even be aware of.
Chris Bryant has done a lot of positive things on the issue of phone hacking and he had a decent platform to continue his discussion but I find it amazing that he decided to bring up that previous interview out of nowhere. If he'd been provoked by something that Kay Burley had said to him today, that's an entirely different matter, and I would not be criticising him, but to raise it of his own accord seems very strange indeed - and I'd be surprised if the Labour press office defend him doing so, if pushed.
When hard-pressed as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown frequently clashed with Adam Boulton, Nick Robinson and other political journalists, but he never brought up previous disagreements in subsequent discussions - even if he knew himself to be correct and the journalist wrong. My opinion is that it's more impressive for the politician to rise above it.
My more cynical side would say that Bryant knew that he would get decent coverage on Twitter, YouTube, etc for confronting Burley in such a manner - cheap point-scoring if you will - but perhaps losing the focus of what he was trying to say today. If he really wanted an apology for his own peace of mind, perhaps doing so off-air would have been a more fitting way to do so.
Whether there has been irrefutable proof so far that hacking was actually "endemic" in the industry, as Mr Bryant so adamantly maintains, is something that we could debate among ourselves and probably not reach an agreement. For one, I'll wait for the outcome of the relevant inquiries. I'm not seeking to defend Burley here; I simply thought that Chris Bryant had a decent opportunity to take the moral high ground today, but chose not to.
and 