I was watching BBC news yesterday after the London Mayoral elections were announced. Polly Tonybee came on board and started her usual vituperation against Boris (an example can be found here). Anyway, that's fine, I dont mind, its clear that she has an opinion about him and that's how she is, a polemicist.
But do not confuse her for being a journalist, at least a journalist who has any pretensions towards even handedness or being bias free. Why? Because she took off on the media. She is part of the media and complained that the media made Ken Livingstone lose the election.
She then took off on Andrew Gilligan, the reporter on the London Evening Standard. Said he was biased against the Labour government because of the history and all that. Then the BBC interviewer said, hold on, for all that complaining about Andrew Gilligan, he has been awarded a very prestigious prize. He has been named as the Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards. She mumbled something and that was the end.
And then I got to thinking, this is a lady who has been voted as the most influential commentator for the second year running. And she is saying these things about a fellow media person. Now, the only conclusions I can draw is that she is a polemicist, biased, politically leaning, unable to judge fairly, and dare I say was coming across with very large amounts of jealous? I can understand her being bitter, but this? It was cringeworthy in the beginning but then it became clownish as time went on.
Fouling your own nest, Ms. Toynbee? I am not sure your colleagues in your various newspapers will really appreciate you taking off on your own colleagues.
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