The crashing insensitivity of Kay Burley [UPDATE]
By Alex Hern Published 05 October 2012 11:12Update Via @johnestevens, a new video shows the full context of Kay Burley's breaking news.
Burley finishes speaking to an expert:
I want to chat to Donna, who we were chatting to a little while ago, hiya.
Hiya.
You've heard the news?
Yeah, he's just said. [gestures off camera, tearing up] I'm sorry.
[A second person approaches]
What's happened? What's happened, we haven't heard.
OK, I didn't know that you hadn't heard.
No we haven't heard.
OK, OK, well. Let me just tell you what we've heard from the police, is that it's now become a murder investigation. . .
Still, this raises questions about the ethics of rolling live news coverage of such a story.
It's not even the first grossly inappropriate comment to have been aired in this story:
Oh dear,Kay Burley asks dog handler live on Sky News what his dog does in search for 5 year old April Jones, his reply 'cadaver search dog"
— Neal Mann (@fieldproducer) October 4, 2012
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17 comments
Don't like this news reader. She looks totally miserable and has an angry look about her.
Don't like this news reader. She looks totally miserable and has an angry look about her.
People who say she was only doing her job blah blah. Firstly Kay Burley is a sensationalist, she uses unconfirmed rumours as factual arguments rather than facts themselves. She is arrogant, refusing to apologise to the Labour MP when she got her facts wrong on the phone hacking scandal and he asked her to apologise but she refused thinking she was bigger than that. She is a reporter who is known to provoke a emotional reaction in order to heighten her interviews rather than take a genuine interest in the interview itself.
The big problem with the April Jones incident is that a tiny community were thrust into the world news. People were working together as a community and were mentally and physically exhausted. This needed a reporter to handle it more sensitively, the absolute last person you would send would be Kay Burley. She breaks the news and then asks how they feel. It is the most amaturish, inconsiderate piece of interviewing I have had the misfortune of watching. People will say she is only doing her job, but this was a situation that needed tact and a moral ethic. She was so matter of fact as if she was covering a lost cat story. No I am sorry but people who are defending her are wrong on this. No way was that professional journalism. It was heartless and emotionless trying to provoke a reaction for camera. What the hell did she expect them to say??
SKY need to get rid of this awful excuse for a reporter. She is not good at what she does and seems to thrive on the notoriety of her interviews.
A heartless female who cares about no-one, nothing except Kay Burley.
I can't believe everyone is allowed to slate her like this......she was doing LIVE TV.....what are you all carrying on about.....its was showing raw gut emotions of a very a high profile story....TV show presenters swear for no reason, war correspondents show all sorts of gruesome details. etc etc and all Kay did was take us right into the hearts and feelings of everyone involved.....which we all knew was a highly charge emotional situation to say the least....bring her back.....the only thing she is guilty of is that she is strong and confident ....too much for you to handle.....
I can't believe everyone is allowed to slate her like this......she was doing LIVE TV.....what are you all carrying on about.....its was showing raw gut emotions of a very a high profile story....TV show presenters swear for no reason, war correspondents show all sorts of gruesome details. etc etc and all Kay did was take us right into the hearts and feelings of everyone involved.....which we all knew was a highly charge emotional situation to say the least....bring her back.....the only thing she is guilty of is that she is strong and confident ....too much for you to handle.....
Totally insensitive. Not the kind of journalism that I want to see. Burley should be sacked.
I don't see what the fuss is about.
She told the two women that is was now a murder inquiry. What's wrong with that? Direct and to the point. It's not as if she was talking to the parents.
My, you people are very touchy.
Should be a sacking case without any shadow of doubt - but remember she's part of the Murdoch empire where normal standards of decency and humanity do not apply.
"How are you feeling?" What a stupid question.
Does this woman have a conscience ? or any sensitivity as to how a question like that will be received. well it looks like Kay got the emotional reaction for the cameras she wanted, and all live on Sky TV. I am sure the Sky News team are very very proud of her.
No, totally wrong. Believe me. She is not a popular person among Sky staff
You can clearly see in that clip that Donna has overheard what the chap being interviewed has just said. Ms Burley can see the woman's reaction off camera and so quickly dismisses her interviewee to pull the poor woman in so we can all see the shock and grief etched onto her face.
These people are members of the community who have spent long days searching for that little girl, hoping against hope that she'd be found alive. To break the news to them in such a fashion was horrific.
Donna, bless her, even apologised to Ms Burley for being upset!
Then Ms Burley asked to see them again later, no doubt so she could milk their grief for longer.
Ms Burley is an experienced and qualified journalist who should have known better. There can be no excuse for such tactless reporting. Apparently Sky have been inundated with complaints and so they should be. It's sensationalist journalism at its worst.
This is nothing more than cold-hearted abuse masquerading as new reportage - absolutely pathetic
In human terms, the way she broke the news is understandable - she was asked.
It seems that after that she did briefly consider leaving them to digest the news, then got stuck back in with two questions that couldn't possibly yield any new information at all - 'How do you feel?' and 'What do you think will happen?'
I think somewhere along the line the concept of 'human interest' has become as mangled as the concept of 'public interest'.
Yes, of course many of us were interested in the search, hoping against hope that she would be found. But that doesn't mean we''re interested in seeing people being interviewed when they're in shock, or grieving. I think most of us have enough empathy to imagine how someone who has been looking for a missing child might feel on first hearing the news that the police think she's dead.
I fail to see what purpose a live rolling broadcast serves in this sort of situation. I can only assume that, having despatched a crew to be there when there were any developments in t he case, they're getting their money's worth.
Kay Burley is, as everyone agrees, a pretty useless presenter: nowhere near the talent of Anna Botting, Jeremy Thompson, Dermot M (or, rather differently, of, say, Alex Crawford or Tim Marshall) etc etc etc. A very mediocre presenter whose intellectual shortcomings are regularly displayed.
People keep asking: 'How does she keep her job, why don't Sky get rid of her?'
Think for a moment. A 50-something female presenter. At the top of her game. There from day one of Sky News. Suddenly sacked.
What do you think her lawyers will argue?
Do you think they might have the Miriam O'Reilly judgment in their hands?
She should have had the camera switched off before speaking to them. Gutter journalism.
Oh my. This is horrific.