Oh dear. It’s not been the best week for ITV, which has seen over 8,200 Ofcom complaints about Monday’s episode of Good Morning Britain. Mr S would advise readers to cast their minds back a few days, where – after a weekend of riots – Home Secretary Yvette Cooper was interviewed by, um, her own husband. How very impartial…
But that’s not the only incident that viewers have taken umbrage with. After those watching expressed their outrage at Ed Balls conducting the ‘softest interview’ with his parliamentarian wife, a number reflected back on a rather ‘dismissive‘ exchange that Balls had undertaken with suspended Labour MP Zarah Sultana – on the same show. Awkward…
Balls quizzed the Labour lefty about why she believed calling the riots ‘Islamophobic’ was important, with viewers taking to social media to voice their frustration that the presenter ‘constantly interrupted’ her throughout the interview. The ex-politician-turned-presenter claimed he was unsure whether Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Cooper had described the disorder in this way, before Sultana hit back: ‘They haven’t’. Viewers contrasted Balls’ behaviour with Sultana to the way he acted when his wife was the interviewee – with a number criticising the broadcaster over conflict of interest concerns. Mail columnist Sarah Vine slammed the husband-wife interview as being ‘beyond parody’ while Deadline journalist Jake Kanter blasted the editorial decision as ‘baffling’. For its part, ITV said its interviews were ‘balanced, fair and duly impartial’, while Ofcom has stated that it is still ‘assessing the complaints’. Stay tuned…
And the incident is hardly going to make things easier for a Labour government trying to crackdown on GB News’ all-star Tory lineup – if it wants to avoid accusations of hypocrisy coming in thick and fast…
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