Boulton and Burley cleared by Ofcom

Sky News correspondents Adam Boulton and Kay Burley have been cleared by the media watchdog Ofcom after nearly 3000 viewers complained about the duo for their coverage of the General Election.

 

Sky News correspondents Adam Boulton and Kay Burley have been cleared by the media watchdog Ofcom after nearly 3000 viewers complained about the duo for their coverage of the General Election. The complaints regarding Adam Boulton were regarding two separate incidents both of which attracted the majority of the complaints to Ofcom. The first set of complaints regarding Boulton were regarding his “heckling” of Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, during the Sky hosted Leaders Debate. Allegations regarding expense claims made by Clegg were published in The Daily Telegraph the day of the debate but 1, 787 viewers complained to Ofcom when Boulton “heckled” Clegg regarding the story during the second debate.

 

The second incident involving Boulton which prompted complaints was following the election during the weekend when the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative party were in talks. Following the news that Labour and the Liberal Democrats could possibly reach a deal to form a coalition government Boulton was involved in an incident with Alistair Campbell live on air. Campbell accused Boulton of wanting David Cameron as “prime minister” of the country and a spat between the two broke out. Angry viewers complained to Ofcom that the incident broke impartiality rules and that Boulton acted unprofessionally.

 

Kay Burley meanwhile was responsible for 1,008 complaints for her interview with political reformer David Babbs. During the weekend of talks between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives a political rally was held outside Lib Dem HQ calling for “fair votes now” – political reform. Viewers of Sky News were outraged by Burley’s interview of Babbs which was seem to be “aggressive”. A Twitter campaign calling for the news anchor to be sacked was launched.

 

However, the duo have now been cleared by Ofcom who concluded that the coverage by the two of the election was in-line with what viewers would expect from Sky News – which perhaps says it all. Are Ofcom saying, therefore, that viewers expect such behaviour from Sky News correspondents? We don’t think so which is why nearly 3000 people did complain when they witnessed it.