Personality clash drives newsman from BBC
HE WAS one of the BBC’s longest-serving newscasters and a veteran foreign correspondent. She had hosted daytime makeover shows after being a young City financier. And it is Philip Hayton who has quit the corporation after 37 years because of a personality clash with his co-presenter…
Silverton, who used to present makeover shows, worked for an investment bank before opting for a career in the media…
One critic has described the glamorous Silverton as looking “not only as if she had come fresh from a beauty salon but as if she usually worked in one”.
Hayton has covered more than 20 conflicts as a BBC foreign correspondent and broke the news of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s death. When asked during a BBC children’s webchat what skills were required to be a news presenter, he replied: “It’s helpful if you’ve been a reporter so that’s why they generally appoint presenters who’ve been reporters.
“Increasingly TV news is becoming more glamorous,” he said, but being glamorous was “certainly not the be-all and end-all, and it’s surprising what you can do with make-up, haircuts and nice clothes”.
He believes a strong journalistic background to be vital for BBC News presenters; Silverton’s rise through entertainment shows may not have impressed the veteran.
The BBC’s race to the bottom continues. More in the Daily Telegraph.
Being male, and she being female, he probably knew he had no chance in any dispute at the BBC. Far too ‘pale and male’.
Hang on…
She worked as a financier at an investment bank and the less than ‘party line’ Rod Liddle has described her as ‘far more intelligent than Hayton’. The moan recently was that BBC staff were jobs for life types who had no experience working outside the BBC institutionally leftist bubble?
Reporters at the BBC don’t even make good reporters, never mind good newsreaders.
Cockney is right.
Whats more she may even be a Tory.
OT: On the state of public toilets.
Extraordinarily irrelevant final “point” in the little side box accompanying this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4285740.stm
PUBLIC TOILETS
There were 5,539 public toilets in April 2004, including car parks, stations and shopping malls
The most expensive are in Westminster and cost 50p
Many have been refurbished as pubs, nightclubs and businesses
Street urination can lead to an on-the-spot £80 fine
40% of the world’s population are without sanitation
aristeides
That’s an interesting, if somewhat gratuitious, final fact from the BBC. It begs the question, just how useless does any society have to be in the 21st century to be incapable of equipping itself with the basics of sanitation? I’d also like to know if that 40% includes anti-war protestors and the animal rights brigades.
From LGF:
A very popular leftist tactic is to use the parents of dead soldiers to promote the “anti-war” cause. Anyone who criticizes the tactic, or the people involved, can simply be accused of brutish insensitivity and bam! the argument is shut down. Or at least that’s what they hope.
Sortapundit highlights a case where British media and “anti-war” groups are collaborating to promote a Cindy Sheehan-like “peace mom”—whose son did not even die in Iraq.
Can you guess which unbiased broadcaster has been fingered?
http://sortapundit.typepad.com/sortapundit/2005/09/lying_in_the_st.html
If he was working for a private media provider like Sky, he would realise that a tantrum like that would be the end of his career.
However at the BBC he is permitted to act like a baby and no doubt expects to still receive highly paid work. It’s just a big slush fund.
According to this BBC page http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/breakfast/presenters/4599291.stm
KS didnt just look in the mirror one day and think “Eeeh I’m a canny looking lass, I’ll gerrus a job on the telly”. The Times piece kind of implies she just beamed down into News 24 out of nowhere.
I find it hard to believe that a guy with so much experience has a “tantrum” Ted.
I’d say, more like he’s had enough of the BS associated with certain elements of the BBC and jacked it in after 37 years.
More likely the case..
And she isn’t a Tory i can tell you for a fact..
Way O/T
I notice that the Menezes relatives have arrived in the UK.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4281734.stm
The Beeb has not mentioned Brazils wonderful history on this.
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2003/12/31/brazil6998.htm#2
While I am not saying this is an excuse, I think some balanced reporting would be nice.
BP average.
Lurker: KS didnt just look in the mirror one day and think “Eeeh I’m a canny looking lass, I’ll gerrus a job on the telly”
ROFL! 🙂
That said, harking back to my post the other day (Richard Baker, Kenneth Kendall, Robert Dougal come back – when the news was The News, not just a show), I do feel that we’ve gone way too far down the road of having lightweight celebrity presenters vs. proper journalists who’ve done time in the field dodging bullets and other assorted strife.
Philip Hayton was one of the dwindling number of people at the BBC from the era of ‘journalism as news’ rather than ‘news as entertainment’. I’m sad to see him go.
As for Kate Silverton, she might well be clever, a lot of people are, but I fear her perceived looks have more to do with her suitability for the BBC – she doesn’t strike me as having much authority about her. As for that awful photo on Lurker’s link – ’nuff said!
Ok Ian, now its me who must go and lie down.
“I do feel that we’ve gone way too far down the road of having lightweight celebrity presenters vs. proper journalists who’ve done time in the field dodging bullets and other assorted strife.”
Proper journalists who dodge bullets?
Good evening and welcome to the News at Six. I’m John Simpson…
And I’m Orla Guerin. First up tonight I’ll be interviewing myself about Ariel Sharon and why he’s to blame for everything bad…
And I’ll be liberating Kabul.
Those people (eg Cockney) who seem to be suggesting that because Kate Silverton used to work in an investment bank that she may be a Tory are way, way wide of the mark. She used to be a regular on the lamentable Wright Stuff programme (I was between jobs at the time, honest) where she used to propound views which would always reliably adhere to the Guardian/Independent template. I remember one occasion especially where she started, unprompted, to sing the praises of Robert Fisk as a journalist whose work she admires and trusts. Whether the panel were discussing teenage pregnancies or the Iraq war (she was quite anti) it wasn’t difficult to guess what her opinion would be – she’s definitely of the Guardian left. How do you think she got a job at the beeb in the first place?
I think having journalistic experience can lend some authority if the “journalist” is reporting facts. Unfortunately, we have too many examples to the contrary…
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/27/D8CSOHS80.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rumors27sep27,0,5492806,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines
…and why ordinary folk like us can provide the fisking they often need.
HT Drudge
David H, thanks for clearing that up. I thought that perhaps al beeb had broken with traadition and hired outside of the Guardians cordon sanitaire.
Evidently not.
That is a real shame and I’m very sorry to hear it, I very much liked Philip Hayton, an excellent presenter and journalist, one of the best the BBC has/had.
james burns
i cannot agree with you about hayton.i disagreed with his politics but i think he was not anywhere near the best of the senior broadcasters.
nik gowing is probably the more capable.yet i do feel sorry for him.
the lesson is that a dodgy temperament should be kept hidden.
(my weak point)
I agree with David H : Silverton is most definitely a leftie.I also saw her on the left-wing Wright Show.
The BBC probably discovered her politics by monitoring her on that very show.Only then would she be deemed suitable to be brought into the BBC fold.
There might just be a linkage here if we look very closely. I wonder if the Labour government or anti-British Broadcasting Corporation would care to comment, or even the Murdoch media circus?
Patricia Hewitt (Ex-Liberty), David Miliband along with Harriet Harman (ex-Liberty) {and Shami Chakrabarti [Liberty] •
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/…- 103680,00.html
therefore possibly why we have to endure her painful glory seeking appearances on the anti-British Broadcasting Corporations political programmes} have/are apparently strongly influenced by the father of the UK Communist party John Saville.
John Saville.
http://www.camdennewjournal.co.u…e/ r120603_5.htm
Patricia Hewitt.
http://www.camdennewjournal.co.u…e/ r120603_5.htm
Shami Chakrabarti.
http://www.infowars.com/ articles…_more_spies.htm
http://www.tribweb.co.uk/ mcveigh…igh01082003.htm
Communism is dead, long live Communism, fanaticism and Bliarcism under New Labour, the Anti-British Broadcasting Corporation and the Country’s leader Rupert Murdoch !
CC,
It’s quite worrying that so many members of the government were so utterly stupid in their youth, but surely you don’t believe that there are Communist aspects to government policy now? If so which?
re: Cockney
Try puting your question to Mr.Wolfgang or Lauren Booth (sister of Cherie Blair) at the Labour party conference.
It would appear that the Labour party ‘stage’ all its ‘shows’. Well now isn’t that a surprise to us all. There was me thinking that it only happened after the 1997 general election when all the photos of the rejoicing crowds locked inside the gates at 10 Downing St were taken. How naive of me!
I wonder how the anti-British Broadcasting Corporation will present it, maybe ‘over-zealous security team’.