Coronavirus | Television News Coverage

95% of the press conferences don’t announce new policies or law including the many weeks of daily ones we had in the spring, yet they were all on BBC One

The BBC will have a tough decision to make next Wednesday if Biden’s inauguration clashes with a Covid press briefing. NewsWatch’s post bag will be heaving that week.

Well their postbag may be heaving but there will be no programme to read them out on .

I think the Government will decide to have a briefing earlier in the day either in the morning say at 11am or at 3pm to avoid clashing with the inauguration if they choose to do so.

Well, indeed, and I'm prepared to say here and now that unless things either totally and suddenly deteriorate next Wednesday to completely unprecedented new depths, or they've discovered a miracle cure and it's all over, there won't be a briefing at 5pm that day, because the Government have the wit to realise that everyone's attention is clearly going to be elsewhere, on all broadcasters not just the Beeb. Not making announcements at the same time as other major news stories is Public Relations 101.

The Government are working around the broadcasters' schedules just as much as the other way round, that's why when they regularly used to do weekend briefings they didn't do them at 5pm so it caused less disruption to the BBC1 schedules, and when they did that one on Halloween they darted through it at the end to make sure it finished in time for Strictly.



We're not really going to get anywhere here if an editorial decision made by specific people on a specific day in specific circumstances is taken to be official policy now written in stone and never to be deviated from regardless of any context.

In Roger Mosey's book he talks about how when there were reports of Saddam Hussain's capture, he was approached about doing rolling news on BBC1 and said it might be a bit premature because it wasn't officially confirmed, but they said it was still a story and, crucially, more interesting that the filler and repeats they had scheduled, so it was going on now. But then when Mosey suggested they do a newsflash on BBC1 to announce the death of Jim Callaghan, he was told it would have to wait because they didn't want to do it before the first episode of the new Doctor Who. Same channel, same people, different scenarios, different decisions.

Am I right in thinking that they wouldn't do a newsflash for something like Callaghan now? They have the breaking alerts from the app at their disposal and that seems more suitable for a story like this.

They did one for Brucie!

Mosey said that he thought that the death of a former Prime Minister was certainly worth marking on BBC1 (and they did do one, after Doctor Who) and I would agree with that.

Your posts have encouraged me to buy this book. Looking forward to diving in later, sounds fascinating.

Oddly of course, the junction into Doctor Who - in England, at least - ended up going tits-up anyway, with a Hustle trail falling off the air.

BBC One - covid press briefing
BBC News - Biden inauguration

Other way round surely, the inauguration is a once in a four-year event, more special because of the recent domestic terrorism. Anything is unlikely to be announced at the press briefing.

Sign language is based on hand gestures, facial expressions and body language. That's how it works.

The number 'two' in BSL is also the same as well, two giving two fingers - it doesn't mean anything else.


This was only back at the beginning where they used a monitor - the two signers (British and Irish Sign Language) now appear in a box at the bottom right of the screen.

It is a great book, certainly for anyone with an interest in news and sport coverage, he writes about being involved in the coverage of death of Diana (as Controller of Five Live) and the Queen Mother (as Head of News), as well as being in overall charge of the coverage of London 2012.



Yes, I wonder if that was related to the uncertainty about whether there'd be a newflash or not. Mosey says that when they were discussing it, Lorraine Heggessey's argument was simply saying "Roger, it's Doctor Who!". And she was right, probably.

I remember there was all kinds of excitement among Scottish Whovians because there was a Scotland match live on BBC1 Scotland that night, with a scheduled 8pm kick-off, but a day or two before the kick-off was brought forward to 7.45, the time Who was scheduled to finish, and everyone wondered if Scotland would start Doctor Who a minute or two earlier than everywhere else to get it finished in time. They didn't, but I recall they didn't show the Next Time sequence in Scotland. Must have been a pretty frantic junction.



Yes, which is also why it's incredibly unlikely they'll do one, unless things very, very suddenly get enormously better or worse.