The Newsroom

London Terror Incidents

(June 2017)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
NE
Newsroom24
itsrobert posted:
Just a comment regarding the criticism of ITV News which I feel I have to defend. I cannot say this enough times - ITN no longer has the resources in place overnight to sustain all-night rolling coverage . It's as simple as that. How people can expect a team to stay all night at work having been there for a 12 hour shift already is beyond my comprehension. And people forget time and time again that it is not just the TV presenters and journalists, but also the directors, lighting directors, sound mixers, technical directors, production assistants, programme editors, MCR engineers....... these people will all have done very long shifts over the weekend and there is no plan for new staff to come and relieve them overnight because there is no 24 hour news channel or ITV Morning News anymore. The BBC and Sky have massive resources already in place - how you can expect ITN to compete with that operation at the drop of a hat is beyond me. ITN these days has a very skeletal staff in overnight to meet its usual obligations (e.g. NBC News, GMB etc.) and without planning beforehand cannot easily mount open-ended rolling coverage anymore. Even back in ITN's heyday of the 80s and 90s, they rarely went into open-ended coverage - they would usually do short newsflashes.

I'm sorry if that comes over as a bit of a rant, but I feel quite strongly about this. For what it's worth, I was watching when all this unfolded last night and watched excerpts of BBC News, Sky News, Al Jazeera, CNN - and when ITV News came on the air I thought it was easily the best of the bunch. The BBC had the same pictures for ages and were very cautious, Sky News was frankly scaring the life out of people - and for me, ITV News struck the right balance. It had enough urgency but you could tell it had been properly planned and resourced appropriately. I can't argue with that.


Completely agree, I thought that ITV's coverage last night was very good and when they did come on air it looked well organised with someone in the studio and also on the scene. I did like Sky News though, as I feel that they are always pretty good with these types of stories and last night was no exception. I can't comment on the BBC as I didn't really watch them. I think it is harsh of people to criticise ITV not coming on air quicker, they came on pretty quickly given the limited resources they had and did a good job. I felt that they came off air around the right sort of time (00:45) as developments were a bit slow coming in at that point, though I would have probably tried to start broadcasting a bit earlier than they did in the end, probably around 06:00 would have been best. Overall a good job from ITV and Sky (and probably the BBC).
NE
newsman1
itsrobert posted:
Just a comment regarding the criticism of ITV News which I feel I have to defend. I cannot say this enough times - ITN no longer has the resources in place overnight to sustain all-night rolling coverage . It's as simple as that. How people can expect a team to stay all night at work having been there for a 12 hour shift already is beyond my comprehension. And people forget time and time again that it is not just the TV presenters and journalists, but also the directors, lighting directors, sound mixers, technical directors, production assistants, programme editors, MCR engineers....... these people will all have done very long shifts over the weekend and there is no plan for new staff to come and relieve them overnight because there is no 24 hour news channel or ITV Morning News anymore. The BBC and Sky have massive resources already in place - how you can expect ITN to compete with that operation at the drop of a hat is beyond me. ITN these days has a very skeletal staff in overnight to meet its usual obligations (e.g. NBC News, GMB etc.) and without planning beforehand cannot easily mount open-ended rolling coverage anymore. Even back in ITN's heyday of the 80s and 90s, they rarely went into open-ended coverage - they would usually do short newsflashes.

I'm sorry if that comes over as a bit of a rant, but I feel quite strongly about this. For what it's worth, I was watching when all this unfolded last night and watched excerpts of BBC News, Sky News, Al Jazeera, CNN - and when ITV News came on the air I thought it was easily the best of the bunch. The BBC had the same pictures for ages and were very cautious, Sky News was frankly scaring the life out of people - and for me, ITV News struck the right balance. It had enough urgency but you could tell it had been properly planned and resourced appropriately. I can't argue with that.


Excellent point.

According to the Newsflash documentary presented by Julie (it can be seen on YouTube), the ITV Network handed over to ITN for coverage of the SAS raid on the Iranian Embassy as the closing credits of that night's episode of Coronation Street were running.
BU
buster
Switching to rolling coverage at the drop of a hat is a relatively recennt phenomenon, which the BBC started doing to promote News 24 and ITV happily mimicked during the News Channel years. Until then it'd be short news flashes or brief bulletins with updates in between programmes.

Unfortunately it makes ITV look behind everyone else, but I think there is something to be said for doing short programmes. The BBC coverage has endlessly repeated the same observations and witnesses. ITV had a bit of analysis and summary from the people they had available, then went off air when it was exhausted. Clearly influenced by the resources available, but much more informative.
LL
London Lite Founding member
For what it's worth, the 35 mins ITV News were on-air was ok, although it was unfortunate that it was Lucrezia Millarini anchoring as it was a low key Saturday shift who reminded me of Sam Naz when she had to anchor breaking news on Sky for the first time being a bit 'rabbit in the headlights.'

Still a learning curve for Ms Millarini.
NE
newsman1
ITV's internet news streaming service and the Breaking News sting that appears on its TV coverage in a major incident shows that, although the ITN/ITV News Channel no longer exists, the spirit of it remains, i.e. the shoestring budget of the coverage. I applaud ITV for its consolidation of its news resources at ITN, its regional newsrooms outside the London region and the network breakfast franchise.
MA
mannewskev
At least ITV actually came on air this time. Nothing at all for 7 and a half hours when Manchester was attacked. Why can they manage it for London but not for Manchester?
NE
newsman1
London Lite posted:
For what it's worth, the 35 mins ITV News were on-air was ok, although it was unfortunate that it was Lucrezia Millarini anchoring as it was a low key Saturday shift who reminded me of Sam Naz when she had to anchor breaking news on Sky for the first time being a bit 'rabbit in the headlights.'

Still a learning curve for Ms Millarini.


Having a weekend relief presenter in the studio is better than having no presenter in the studio at all.
NE
newsman1
mannewskev posted:
At least ITV actually came on air this time. Nothing at all for 7 and a half hours when Manchester was attacked. Why can they manage it for London but not for Manchester?


Because, unlike in London last night, there was relative certainty with a very short period of time that the Manchester attack was over. Bear in mind that it was a marauding attack in London.
:-(
A former member
ITV has staff in Manchester, its big base within Manchester. With last night I only thing I wish ITV did differently was getting that newsflash on for 23.50. everything else was fine, and I can aspect no rolling news all night long.
LL
London Lite Founding member
newsman1 posted:
London Lite posted:
For what it's worth, the 35 mins ITV News were on-air was ok, although it was unfortunate that it was Lucrezia Millarini anchoring as it was a low key Saturday shift who reminded me of Sam Naz when she had to anchor breaking news on Sky for the first time being a bit 'rabbit in the headlights.'

Still a learning curve for Ms Millarini.


Having a weekend relief presenter in the studio is better than having no presenter in the studio at all.


IMHO I still don't understand why people are so obsessed with ITV providing a bulletin at all? They didn't do it for Manchester and were only able to do it at the tail end of the end of the PM shift.

Like Manchester, Freeview viewers had access to BBC1, BBC News, Sky, RT and Al Jazeera English which is more than adequate.
MA
mannewskev
newsman1 posted:
mannewskev posted:
At least ITV actually came on air this time. Nothing at all for 7 and a half hours when Manchester was attacked. Why can they manage it for London but not for Manchester?


Because, unlike in London last night, there was relative certainty with a very short period of time that the Manchester attack was over. Bear in mind that it was a marauding attack in London.


It wasn't so far into the night that fatalities were reported in Manchester and the terror aspect was clarified, yet ITV did nothing.
WH
Whataday Founding member
itsrobert posted:
Just a comment regarding the criticism of ITV News which I feel I have to defend. I cannot say this enough times - ITN no longer has the resources in place overnight to sustain all-night rolling coverage . It's as simple as that.


I'm struggling to understand why that makes ITV above criticism on this subject? If anything that's exactly the criticism levelled at it, rather than a justification?

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