[JK08]

Somebody I’ve not seen mentioned, but I think would be fantastic… Charlie Stayt.

[RhysJR]

Much talk about who the BBC should use for a general election, but who will be the main host on Sky? Sophy Ridge was superb yesterday, and the likely favourite for overnights, but will they use a 'bigger' name like Mark Austin or Kay Burley instead?

[newsjunkie]

Much talk about who the BBC should use for a general election, but who will be the main host on Sky? Sophy Ridge was superb yesterday, and the likely favourite for overnights, but will they use a 'bigger' name like Mark Austin or Kay Burley instead?

If you want to see who is the new favourites at Sky, just look at their peak time line up. They will be faces of the election.
Sophie Ridge/Mark Austin/Sarah-Jane Mee.

It wouldn't surprise me if they teamed Sophie & Mark. Could also imagine Sarah-Jane in a role where she is 'travelling the UK' to find out what people think.

Kay is increasingly sidelined, so would think she will be kept to the Breakfast slot. Maybe extended later into the morning for the reaction, with Mark and/or Sophie picking up again after a bit of rest.

[Brekkie]

Holding Kay back until the breakfast then morning shift would make sense for the Downing Street side of proceedings, so I'd probably say Sophie overnight, though I think they usually have some flagship presenters on location too.

[excel99]

One name that doesn't get mentioned much for the BBC's election coverage, but who I think would be very well suited - Mishal Husain. Years of experience in rolling news, familiar to BBC One viewers, covers UK politics on Today (and if she was on BBC One, that would be one less Today presenter in contention to present on the Friday morning!)

[XIII]

Is Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg in NBH with Politics London as Paul Scully was on both programmes.

[matthieu1221]

Well she didn't make it up, she wasn't the only person in the mainstream media who repeated the claims, though that reflects badly on everyone who repeated it rather than excuses Laura. These seasoned journalists should stick to reporting facts, not social media tittle tattle from unnamed and questionable sources, leave that to the tabloids.

The BBC website live feed also repeated a claim that Labour had already conceded the WM mayor race on Friday morning (again, before any votes had been counted, or even verified), which wasn't any better. But that seemed to go largely unnoticed comapred to Laura's tweet.

Some others made the slightly more excusable mistake of looking at the turnout differentials between Inner and Outer London which turned out to not be correct but at least it was an attempt at looking at facts and trying to draw some analysis from it. She seems to have pulled whatever she said from a hat! Similar to Kate Ferguson claiming that Hall was ahead in Brent and Camden before any votes were counted -- but she's from the Sun and at least has the humility to claim in her bio that she's the "most creative journalist" . Even Laura K's own BBC colleagues on air by Friday morning were basically disproving what she said and Tim Donovan, the BBC London Political Editor never spouted such claims. You'd think that any of the others I mentioned here would be best suited than her.

[AaronTV]

Some of the criticism aimed at Laura K here is rather silly and over the top, in line with much of the commentary around her.

In terms of speculation, every broadcaster was guilty of this and it helped to fill a nice gap for media outlets between results on Friday night and Saturday afternoon when everything became a little dead.

If there are rumours/speculation of a particular angle, that should be reported sensibly - with a strong caveat that it is a rumour. It is how the basis of most reporting works - you cannot praise the method when it gets you scoops early, but lambast it the handful of times it is incorrect. The suggestions that outlets should not report informed ‘speculation’ is ridiculous - the news business is a competition and always has been.

As for speculating before any votes have been counted, it’s clear that those commenting here have no understanding whatsoever of the verification process and how this is used at counting centres to give an early indication. I would recommend reading up on this before being quite so confident in your criticisms…

[matthieu1221]

Some of the criticism aimed at Laura K here is rather silly and over the top, in line with much of the commentary around her.

In terms of speculation, every broadcaster was guilty of this and it helped to fill a nice gap for media outlets between results on Friday night and Saturday afternoon when everything became a little dead.

If there are rumours/speculation of a particular angle, that should be reported sensibly - with a strong caveat that it is a rumour. It is how the basis of most reporting works - you cannot praise the method when it gets you scoops early, but lambast it the handful of times it is incorrect. The suggestions that outlets should not report informed ‘speculation’ is ridiculous - the news business is a competition and always has been.

As for speculating before any votes have been counted, it’s clear that those commenting here have no understanding whatsoever of the verification process and how this is used at counting centres to give an early indication. I would recommend reading up on this before being quite so confident in your criticisms…

Verification-led prediction is difficult on a London-wide scale with a million+ votes. Much easier on a constituency level at GEs. There's big health and safety warning that needs to be given whenever it's used. Even on a constituency-based level, they are incredibly diverse in London. Barnet and Camden for instance where Kate Ferguson from the Sun claimed Hall was ahead -- highly suspect, if she was stating it in good faith, that she was getting the idea from ballot boxes opened from Barnet rather than Camden.

There's also a difference between reporting it as 'Labour and Tory sources claim that the race is tighter than the polls show' and reporting it as fact. Just as well, when Labour sources claimed before the BBC, Sky and other outlets made their own projections that Labour had won London, it was reported that it was Labour sources that indicated that rather than reporting it as fact. So it can be done, and most of the time it is done with that little caveat.

[XIII]

I wonder if the Labour team sent out that rumour for shits and giggles.

It was telling that when asked about it on Sky News, a lot of the Tory interviewees didn't seem convinced it was true.