Good Morning Britain

Significant, but I wouldn't say crucial. I highly doubt Susanna took a pay-cut to avoid the commute to Salford.

I suspect ITV made her an offer she literally couldn't afford to refuse.

Perhaps Richard isn’t joining until next year,

Or the reports were lies which was probably the case

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/good-morning-britain/news/a860734/good-morning-britain-richard-madeley-gmb-full-time-reports/

Quote “Well, an ITV spokesperson told Digital Spy: "GMB love having Richard on to fill for Piers or Ben but there are no current plans for him to have a regular slot."”

Ben and Kate criticised by Ofcom over Nicola Sturgeon interview:

https://www.scotsman.com/news/itv-censured-over-inaccuracies-in-interview-with-nicola-sturgeon-1-4818204/amp?__twitter_impression=true

If you’re going to attempt to ‘nail’ a politician in an interview, it’s probably best to have the facts absolutely correct.

It's a pretty damning conclusion into the production and editorial processes within the ITV Breakfast teams. If you're going to interview a senior politician over the contents of a report, it's surely essential that the report itself and not a third party summation thereof be used in the research gathering process beforehand. The delay in apologising formally is also uncalled for.

Ofcom Broadcast and On Demand Bulletin 364 - 22 Oct 2018.

The journalism equivalent of producing a book essay based on watching the film.
Sloppy corner cutting by GMG staffers, exacerbated by an arrogant host who thought he knew more about a report - based on only a half-arsed note - than the person responsible for it.

Ofcom report here : https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/124116/issue-364-broadcast-on-demand-bulletin.pdf

This is where having two presenters that are not trained journalists lets them down. It has let This Morning down several times in the past also when they've tried to interrogate a guest.

Kate's early days in TV were spent reporting for ITV regional news so I'm not sure that assessment applies here.

I think the bigger problem with particular incident was probably the summary that was provided to the presenters by the production team. If they had been handed the note and been told "this is a summary of the key points of the report" for example, I would wager that they would just trust that what they had been told by those who produced the notes was correct.

As for the presenters' treatment of Sturgeon, it sounds (judging by the Scotsman report) pretty similar to how most political interviews go these days. If what Ben was stating was true, there wouldn't have been an issue to most people in how she was treated, but I don't think it's really his fault he wasn't provided the correct brief (and I doubt any other GMB presenter does their own in-depth research either).

Scotland did polarised politics long before the rest of the UK had its Brexit debate, and I imagine many people have complained on a constant basis about bias when they've had absolutely no foundation to do so, so you have to ensure you absolutely know what you're talking about before you crash into a Scottish political debate. In this instance, I'm surprised they only got one complaint, because part of that side of the debate is convinced the entire media is out to get them.

Whilst Ben may not be a trained journalist, Kate came up through the TV News ranks. She was a presenter at Meridian, was one of the News 24 launch presenters (Matthew Amroliwala shared a timslot across the week with Kate on News 24 - though they didn't present together) before moving to GMTV.

That said - can you imagine Breakfast's Louise and Dan or Charlie and Naga making the same mistakes or conducting the interview in that manner, and would you expect a Breakfast production journalist to create a briefing of that quality from that source? I wonder if this gives the lie to GMB's current 'click bait' priorities ? Maybe they are prioritising 'getting Piers and Susanna trending on twitter' over basic journalism?