David Starkey was interviewed by Newsnight to give his opinion on the London riots. Newsnight has been heavily criticised (The Guardian, 21 August 2011), for its poor judgement in giving a platform to a man to talk about the riots who is loud, opinionated and a historian in Tudor England.
Supposedly Starkey was invited on to the programme as a guest speaker because he is relatable to ordinary people. Alas this “ordinary” man did not relate to the mass public whilst the streets of Britain were being vandalised. Rather, Newsnight has been accused of having “lost of way”, and not having challenged the bigoted ramblings of Starkey. The fact that Jeremy Paxman carries so much weight of the show does not help either, given that he was away on holiday at the time of this interview.
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