INTERESTING anecdote in The Guardian diary today – involving Scots broadcaster, Kirsty Wark.
The paper reports: “Since Hutton, those BBC journalists have been on their mettle as regards double-sourcing stories. So imagine star Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark’s dilemma when getting ready to do her live broadcast on the BBC General Election programme last May outside Sheffield town hall.
“Two old ladies drove up: ‘I am sure they were in a Morris Minor’, she recalls. ‘Here, Kirsty’, they said. ‘It’s after 10pm, and we’ve not been able to vote. They won’t let us in.’
“Ever vigilant, she spotted a good story, but what of the Hutton-driven need for double sourcing?
“‘Well, there were two of them in the car, so I took it that was OK’, she told students at Coventry University. Thirty seconds later she broadcasted the news to the nation. The story ran and ran. Sometimes rules are there to break.”
