Boulton said earlier that Brown hadn't got the qualities for a PM and said that he'll be quickly forgotten.
Adding salt to the wounds!
Boulton is a scandal of late. He's seriously losing his grip on his position, one I believe is becoming more and more untenable.
Some of the papers are reporting that OFCOM have received hundreds of complaints over his spat with Campbell. Exact figures will be announced today. I do hope Boulton is put out to pastures, enough is enough. Time for Sky to look at breaking new talent.
There is an argument that Ofcom complaints are increasingly being driven by Twitter / Facebook etc. (and in some cases The Daily Mail etc.). Whether this is a good thing - as more people are discovering material that they think is unacceptable and making their opinions known to the regulators - or a bad thing as more and more people jump on a bandwagon and are "offended second-hand" is up for discussion.
I think my issue with Boulton - which I've had for years - is that he appears so smug and self-important, and as he's reportedly the best paid TV journalist in the UK (AIUI the BBC couldn't afford him even if they wanted him...) this presumably fuels this arrogant attitude. He thinks he's brilliant. People tell him he's brilliant. He gets some great stories. However he's not a great presenter, and he's not super human...
All it takes is lack of sleep / lack of food (wonder if he had low blood-sugar during the Campbell spat - rather than being drunk as others have suggested) and the veneer cracks and reveals that he's not as good as he thinks he is...
I have a similar issue with Kay Burley. She thinks she's great. Sky must continuously tell her she's great. She's a polished, if very mannered, Autocue-reader. However she's very limited in her interviewing skills - and appears to think she can be Jeremy Paxman. She can't - she's simply not bright enough... (And her faux sincerity on the softer interviews is truly nauseating)
How she survived nearly throttling the PA photographer I don't know - but that was off-screen.
What was worse was, on-screen, asking the wife of the Ipswich murderer whether she felt her husband would have killed women if they'd had a better sex life. That was probably one of the most appalling pieces of tabloid TV I've seen ever in the UK. Jaw dropping on so many levels. (Editorially though - I think it was pre-recorded - so you can't JUST blame Kay Burley for that - others approved it too.)
(Her ignorance of Joe Biden's Ash Wednesday mark was less jaw dropping - but again exposed her lack of actual knowledge and substance... That was live...)
On the other hand they both make great fodder for a new series of Newswipe or Screenwipe...
Last edited by noggin on 12 May 2010 11:24am - 2 times in total
