Why is it OK to boo journalists asking difficult questions?
Before Ed Miliband dared to take a question from Britain’s media on Monday he had to issue a warning to his party. Don’t boo the journalists, they are just doing their job.
Nigel Farage didn’t make any such warning today before his aides and supporters drowned out a journalist asking a probing question about why the only black face to feature in the party’s manifesto was on the international aid page.
It seems odd to have to explicitly tell the audience at a political hustings, a press conference, a public speech, that journalists are allowed to interrogate what is being said, even if you don’t agree with what they are asking about. However at many public events being asking a question as part of a national media organisation does not go down well.
When I was in the lobby I went to dozens of speeches and have been booed at, hissed at and berated for doing my job numerous times. Although admittedly never with quite so much gusto as Ukip managed today.
It’s not just me – the BBC were chased around with billboards in Glasgow during the referendum, Channel 4’s own Michael Crick was knocked on the head with a newspaper for asking an awkward question and I once saw a very confused FT journalist being berated at a public Ed Miliband speech.
He hadn’t even asked the question which caused the ire, he was just sat in the wrong bit of the audience.