Interview Style
In June 2007, Wark clashed with Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond in an interview over his response to a memorandum of understanding between the UK Government and Libya regarding prisoner exchanges. Salmond feared that this could include Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted by a court in Scotland, for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
The BBC, after having received 120 formal complaints, issued a public apology to Salmond regretting the "rude and dismissive" tone of the presenter. A spokesman for the First Minister said that Alex Salmond accepted the BBC's apology. According to Newsnight editor Peter Barron, some viewers questioned the premise of the interview; that the new SNP government appeared to be picking a fight with London. Other viewers thought that Wark's line of questioning was too aggressive and therefore discourteous. The biggest controversy, however, regarded how the interview ended. According to Barron, time constraints forced Wark to end the questioning abruptly, leading him to perceive her behaviour as "rude and dismissive."
Television critic A. A. Gill has criticised her hosting of the "embarrassingly rubbish" Newsnight Review, describing her as a "taut and trite Edinburgh cultural stamp collector".
Read more about this topic: Kirsty Wark
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