God knows, the Dan Walker Breakfast backlash is misguided

Football Focus presenter Dan Walker has been appointed Bill Turnbull’s replacement on the BBC breakfast news magazine programme. We’ll miss old Bill but we all got over Suzannah Reid’s departure (more quickly than we thought too- she got more than a little full of herself towards the end and Naga does a great job alongside Louise), so I’m sure we’ll manage.

Dan Walker is a Christian, particularly one of the Young Earth bent, who believes the world is less than 10,000 years old. He also has strong beliefs about not working on a Sunday, as God has set it aside for worship. This makes him acceptable to present Football Focus but, given the backlash that appears to be growing (The Telegraph I can understand, the Guardian, not so much), unacceptable to present a news magazine show.

Odd that.

The Guardian gives some strained examples of how his faith might conflict with his presenting- how could Dan report on gravitational waves that are over 13 billion years old if he thinks the world was created 10,000 years ago?

Religious bias and religious fundamentalism are of course a problem but rather than jumping up and down about a chap who is surrounded by colleagues who could and presumably will take the lead on stories that he feels conflicted on, I would have rather seen the same sort of hoo-hah on the appointment of the former BBC political editor, Nick Robinson, as an anchor on Radio 4’s Today programme.

Ask yourself how a man who was a founder member of Macclesfield Young Conservatives, Cheshire Young Conservative Chairman, served on the Young Conservative National Advisory Committee, was Chairman of the National Young Conservatives, and was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association could possibly be able to present in a fair and unbiased manner. Then remind yourself of the heavily edited interview with Alex Salmond that misrepresented what the SNP leader actually said. Fortunately the unedited version was published on YouTube. Nick Robinson is wholly inappropriate as a political commentator. He might just cut it as a news reader but I’ve already given up on the Today programme as the line of questioning he takes is exceptionally dogmatic.

Compare and contrast the reaction to the two appointments. Now think which appointment might most affect the way news is reported.

This entry was posted in Blog. Bookmark the permalink.