Steven Baxter

Patrolling the murkier waters of the mainstream media

Kay Burley's insensitivity over April Jones wasn't just her fault

The Sky News presenter’s style lacks compassion, but the feeding frenzy 24-hour news produces is also to blame.

By Steven Baxter Published 05 October 2012 15:42

Kay Burley live on Sky News during the search for April Jones

A team of searchers prodded a bag of sand with a stick, peered down into a riverbank and lifted up paving slabs. They were hunting for a missing girl, five-year-old April Jones, and they were doing it live on television.

Was this some kind of elaborate stunt to draw attention to the search, and to the identity of the suspect? If it was, the searchers were going about their business thoroughly. No, this was what it seemed to be: a live TV report of people looking for a missing girl, who might at any second discover her.

I sat watching, open-mouthed, wanting to turn over, but transfixed by what I was seeing. Perhaps I am as guilty as anyone, because I didn't turn over in disgust. All I could think was: don't find anything, don't find anything. Imagine if they had.

It’s tempting to look at the work of Kay Burley, whose interviews have marked her out for criticism in recent hours, and single her out as what has made Sky News’s coverage so unsettling. But even though her presentation has at times lacked the smallest sliver of compassion or humanity, she is no more than the most obvious symptom of a wider sickness. (Besides, there’s a little more than a suspicion of misogyny about some of the abuse hurled in Burley’s direction.)

There’s something else going on behind all this, something which we saw in the aftermath of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, the search for the killer of Joanna Yeates and the hunt for Raoul Moat: there’s a feeding frenzy, and the news-as-sport hysteria in which the human tragedy and heartbreak at the core of the story is forgotten in the search for new and exciting pictures.

There are times when the feeding frenzy can do good, and the public has been mobilised as never before with the search for April Jones, given that it was the first occasion on which the nationwide child rescue alert was triggered. But there should be a point where the makers of news should begin to realise where the good they do becomes a cruel, cold, vulturous activity, which is less about raising awareness and more about raising ratings.

It’s by no means unique to this country. Last week, a man shot himself to death live on Fox, a kind of grisly horror which has become normalised in the age of rolling news, where real car chases are entertainment to be pored over and inserted with commercials. The network apologised for subjecting its viewers to the distressing sequence, but by then the damage had been done. If you point a camera at a person in an extreme situation who has a gun, there is a chance that something like that will happen. The question is: what is your overarching public interest in pointing the camera and showing the footage live in the first place?

Someone has to have the courage to stand up and say: put the cameras away, we have seen enough. Someone has to make that call not to show live footage of someone poking around in some bushes for what could be a human body. And to say that even though we can do this, there are some things we shouldn’t do, out of basic respect for other people, because that sort of thing should matter.

It does matter. Doesn’t it?

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17 comments

Wed, 2012-10-10 23:51 — Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley (not verified)

"If you point a camera at a person in an extreme situation who has a gun, there is a chance that something like that will happen."

Some people think the act of pointing is aggressive, as if there is some power in the pointed camera or even the pointed finger. In the face of something being pointed towards them, some people respond inappropriately- becoming overtly aggressive as if to defend their position. terrible mistakes can be made because of the way some can't stand others pointing things out, or at them.

But really, we can only be responsible for our own actions. This woman news reporter was doing her job. But people as individuals didn't need to play along with the news reporters just because the cameras were pointing at them.

Let's hope April is still alive. My thoughts and prayers are also for Madeleine and Ben Needham ( a child who disappeared in 1991).

Mon, 2012-10-08 13:09 — ChristopherMark (not verified)

I agree that Kay handled a very difficult situation calmly and professionally. You can't have it both ways. Either we have real time news or we don't.

Mon, 2012-10-08 13:09 — ChristopherMark (not verified)

I agree that Kay handled a very difficult situation calmly and professionally. You can't have it both ways. Either we have real time news or we don't.

Mon, 2012-10-08 12:58 — William_Brown

Given that it was live TV and the news of it becoming a murder investigation had already been released, I don't see why people are getting so offended by Kay Burley's on-the-spot reportage. She was clearly upset herself and mindful of the shock and hurt that the news would convey. One just has to note Burley's body language to see that.

Once again, this is an example of the 'professionally offended', with their faux outrage on display, as part of their sick, tacit need to become part of this dreadfully distressing situation. It also tells you all you need to know about Tom Watson MP and others, with their ever present band-waggoning - it begs the question as to who are the guilty drama mongers, trying to make some freakish, self indulgent gain out of this awful tragedy?

Sat, 2012-10-06 13:26 — Badger O Stripey One

Do you people want to live in a world where you can't read or watch the news without it being sanitised first for fear of upsetting you?

Grow up.

Sat, 2012-10-06 17:51 — Ciaran Goggins

I tend to agree with you, which I don't on the Torygraph/Brecqhou Bugle.

Sat, 2012-10-06 02:22 — susan galea (not verified)

We live in predatory capitalist society and it is hardly surprising that Murdoch's muppets should be translating this ethos into their exploitation of anyone vulnerable or in distress. Par for the course really.

Sat, 2012-10-06 02:02 — harryhart (not verified)

Sky News have been leading on this story for the first ten minutes of every news bulletin for the past three days without ever reporting any significant developments. I have no idea why they are making this item such a major concern when there haeen absolutely no movement. My sympathy and regrets are totally with the parents, friends and relatives of April.

Sat, 2012-10-06 00:28 — Red99 (not verified)

If you think Kay burley is insensitive then just try that wicked bitch Victoria Derbyshire on radio 5. Toxic beyond belief.

Sat, 2012-10-06 08:40 — Pavlova

What is the news anyway? All of it? You think you're doing something virtuous by watching it? Any of it?

Unless something directly affects you or you are in any position to act on the information then you have absolutely no business knowing about it. If you watched a single bit of this coverage you were rubber-necking.

I didn't. I never watch the news, I don't regard other people's disasters as a suitable way to entertain myself.

Fri, 2012-10-05 20:24 — Rev Graeme Hancocks (not verified)

I don't wish to be unduly unkind but she is awful.

Mon, 2012-10-15 06:12 — Astrolin (not verified)

I find her awfully wooden. Her eyes have no expression, her tone is sometimes harsh.

Fri, 2012-10-05 18:31 — Nicola (not verified)

Agreed, whilst there has always been lowest-common denominator journalism, it's entered a Golden Age with the invention of 24-hour rolling news. It has it's merits, but quality has been replaced by quantity; saying twenty words that end up incoherent is deemed better than a succinct ten. Say anything just make sure you say something. So reporters don't listen, think and respond during interviews, they just react. As today has proved, that can be really ugly.

For me, that is the type of sensitivity that being lost from journalism, so now we have traumatised relatives being interviewed rabbit-in-the-headlights style by Kay "tell us how you feel" Burley. The woman featured in the video (apparently a relation) was hearing the worst news at exactly the same time as we were, and was asked to come up with a response to satisfy us because there is another 43 seconds to fill before we go back to the studio and the weather, that is hideous.

I realise my thoughts are hardly original, no doubt others express them better, the original piece particularly. I think the sentiment is worth repeating though.

Fri, 2012-10-05 18:26 — gedon (not verified)

Sky news are utter ghouls!
I remember Kay Burley speaking to someone who had called in on a mobile phone after the 7/7 bombings. He said to her, 'I am going to have to hang up now cause the police are saying that mobile phones may trigger another bomb' and Burley continued questioning him, trying to keep him on the line.
Little April and her family have suffered enough. Go home, you disgraceful ghouls!

Fri, 2012-10-05 17:43 — Ciaran Goggins

One may also add "daft questions", a news story I watched had a Mother being told her child was safe (it was in the US, crazed gunman ran amok) and the interviewer said to the woman (who was in floods of tears) "How do you feel?" How the hell do you think she felt?