Arrrgh! Stop being jokey and cheerful, Sky News

I'm not enjoying Sky News as much as I used to - and I think the main reason is the expectation on news anchors to display their 'personalities'.

Particularly vexatious to my spirit is Sarah-Jane Mee. Hmmm ... if ever a name was designed for the rather narcissistic world of TV, eh?

In real life (and come ON! - telly is NOT real life) Sarah-Jane is a nice human being and a good journalist, I'm told. I can accept that.

But my point is that her on-screen persona is too bubbly, too cheerful; it detracts from the news, rather than communicating it clearly and giving some heft and appropriate colour to what is happening in our troubled world. The same can be said for many of her colleagues at Sky.

I've never worked in television, but I am a craft-trained and professionally-qualified NEWSPAPER journalist. I object to the way TV news expects women to be ... blonde, glamorous and chirruping away. As a feminist myself, I do not like to see that, and I don't think women should go along with it.

Regardless of gender, most of the Sky News reporters and presenters seem skilled. They recognise a news story, and don't spoil it too much by speaking words that must always match or 'speak to' the filmed images. I guess they're trained to do that rather too much; unnecessarily, in my view.

But even some of the male news presenters are too much into projecting humour, nearly always unsuccessfully. Some can't resist flirting with the studio guests and smiling archly at the camera in a smug way. Urgh ... stop it!

I think what makes TV news presenters behave in such a way is that they wrongly think that they have achieved a special status by being on the telly, being a 'TV star'.

They are deluded. Being on the TV is rather naff, frankly.

As for the newspaper reviewers, Sky News has some terrible umm-ing and errrr-ing ones. Only recently, I watched some dork from the Huff Post honking away, and a 'news editor' from some silly 'think tank' crapping on in a most annoying American accent.

And Sky News will keep inviting 'jourrnalists' from the Daily Express to be on-screen pundits. What?! No proper journalist takes the Express seriously any more. It's a joke.

I'm seriously thinking of offering myself to Sky News as a new gob-on-stick for the nightly paper reviews.

Well, at least I'm a real journalist ... and I'm eloquent.