London Terror Incidents

BBC One Weekend News at One extended to 35 minutes according to online schedule.

EDIT: ITV News at Ten also extended tonight.

Not sure that's true. The police in London killed all three terrorists within 8 minutes. IIRC there was doubt over Manchester about whether there were other people involved elsewhere, so there could have been further escalation of events in Manchester. It seems to me, unless I'm wrong, the London attack was over within a very short period of time whereas the Manchester one was the one where we were unsure about whether it was over and, indeed, it took quite a while before it was even found to be terrorism. (Which may have delayed ITV's response as it wasn't clear what the Manchester tragedy was for a while - perhaps ITN staff had left by midnight, whereas with London the news was already clear before then so the staff were still in the building and able to stay or maybe it was because the Manchester attack was in a different part of the country than ITN in London.)

The question about ITV not providing TV coverage late night a week last Monday has been asked an answered in various ways by many people over and over again in the Manchester thread. What answer are people wanting that makes them keep asking it?

No - the criticisms last night were along the lines of "why isn't ITV News on air all night - they have a presenter and correspondent in the studio" - to which my response was aimed. My argument is that you cannot expect ITV News to provide open-ended coverage all night given their current resourcing.


The criticism that ITV ought to be in a position to provide overnight coverage is perfectly justified - but this is a much wider issue for consideration after the event.

There is the question who are people benchmarking ITV against that says that they should provide overnight coverage at the drop of a hat. ITV are basically in a league of one which no level comparison with anyone else either side of them.

That's a very good point, Andrew. I think if people actually saw the ITN operation in person they would be surprised just how small it is compared to BBC News and Sky News - and given that, how bloody fantastic their coverage is given their resourcing. ITN certainly punches well above its weight on ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

In terms of which incident was longest-running - having covered both it did seem the threat from Manchester was instant. In London we weren't sure if people were still on the run or not yet, whereas it's now clear it was over almost as quickly. Both were hugely serious incidents with different consequences - people who'd packed their kids off to the Ariana Grande concert could have done with knowing what's going on, people in London needed to know there was a major incident in a busy part of the capital.

I think it's understandable that ITV is not in a position with one presenter and one correspondent to go into breaking news mode for several hours at a time. There's also a degree to which anyone damning ITV now versus ITV in the 90s is not making a fair comparison - aside from Diana's death, ITV would presumably only ever have done news bulletins through the night.

For me it comes down to what sort of channel ITV sees itself as these days. Is it just another multi-channel that does PSB because it has to (and that's no criticism of the journalists who work on exceptional programmes) or does it see itself as something bigger. If it's the latter, it needs to be able to respond to major incidents.

That doesn't necessarily entail open-ended coverage - although if there's an ongoing incident where public safety is at risk then it really should - but possibly just a return to news updates through the night in the event of a major story on the scale of a terror attack in the UK, and an occasional caption on screen with the most important information, directing viewers to the website/social media accounts. That strikes me as realistic.

The argument against would be that you're pointing people away from ITV, but then the argument against getting a news programme up was that few people are watching anyway.

Tell that to the whole of social media - lots of finger pointing and Conservative bashing, but then it's been like that ever since the leave vote!

I only saw a brief moment of it but Peston made a good point about whether at times like this people like him actually should just continue doing their job and asking the questions rather than letting terrorists dictate the agenda. Sadly too as they become more frequent such incidents become more normalised and I think especially in an election campaign though there needs to be respect there also needs to be as much normality as possible.

People say these incidents shouldn't be politicised but the nature of them, including the timing and increased frequency, means it's inevitable they are. Theresa May obviously has to make a statement about such things, as do all the leaders, and although she's playing her role as PM rather than candidate the comments she made do go back to the politics and getting the balance right between what is required to keep people safe and what liberties may be under threat in a governments effort to do so. Already this morning they're trying to deflect the blame onto the likes of Facebook etc. rather than their own policies.


I think she's right - these questions need to be asked. The families of the dead and the injured will have more important issues to worry about today but for the rest of the nation I think the frequency of these incidents means such questions can no longer be ignored. Policies affect lives, whether it's police numbers, arms sales or measures which could affect freedom of speech. Perhaps for effective action to be taken these issues have to be discussed in the public arena in the immediate aftermath of an attack rather than leaving it a few days or weeks once everyone apart from those directly affects has frankly moved on.

I also think in the context of the election campaign where the Tories have been bringing up comments and meetings Corbyn had with the IRA 30 years ago it is quite right that discussion about what to do about the very real terrorist threats of today remains on the agenda.


Really appreciate your post and completely agree when it did get to air ITV News had the right balance - and that is why it frustrates us because ITV News is fantastic at what it does when it gets the opportunity.

The comments about how we can expect people to stay on after a 12-hour shift really irritate me though - they'll have been people on the frontline last night who would have had to stay on after a 12-hour shift doing a much tougher role to deal with unimagineable horrors, many of whom may still be in work now. And similarly they'll have been police, paramedics and hospital staff called in to work overnight at short notice due to the attacks that took place. Obviously they play a much more important role but news coverage is also a public service, and although it is obviously duplicate elsewhere and goes beyond television I just don't think ITV should be expecting terrorists to work around their shift pattern.


Completely agree and there being "no plan for new staff to come and relieve them overnight" suggests a major failing on ITV's part. There should be a plan for such incidents and it is something I would hope ITV and ITN review in the near future. Newsgathering wouldn't have stopped once ITV went off air either - I suspect Angus and Rohit were up most the night and others supporting them too.

It's not necessarily about rolling coverage either - even if the resources aren't there for that they should have been able to drop into Jackpot 24/7 for updates every hour or so.


Excuses have been made. Answers haven't been provided, although itsroberts put his point of view across very well earlier, but that just leaves questions too.

Just like circumstances evolved which led to ITV dropping it's 24 hour news channel circumstances over the last couple of years, and last couple of weeks especially, have exposed a major weakness in ITV's ability to broadcast unfolding events overnight. There are reasons for that which have now been explained, but that doesn't mean those reasons should just be accepted. As with any business you can't always do what you'd like to do but at the very least there should be a review about what happens with overnight coverage - it could be as simple as putting an agreement in place with one of the international channels for ITV to carry their coverage where ITN can't provide their own.

Also as an aside surely ITN have a duty to their international partners to be providing coverage too, especially NBC.

What about GMB? surly there can deal with most over night news operations? GMB staff should be in the buildings for 3am? So it only just leaves a 3 hour block for ITV trying to fill. Of course this will not work for Fri/Sat or Sat/sun but there are already half way up the hill. Mind you if your out and about like me, TV is off no good.

I think parties can make a decision not to campaign nationally and that will be respected by those in charge of the party. Social media is more of a free-for-all (that isn't a criticism) and don't forget that although the two main parties have suspended campaigning, some others (UKIP, for example) haven't.

Some might argue they already have. Tonight we have a concert, that is only happening because of the terrorist attack 13 days ago, and now there is no election campaigning today, because of last night's events.

I'm not saying the concert or the campaigning should or should not take place today, but we perhaps need to evaluate where the limits are for the , 'Keep Calm and Carry On' spirit ?