Manchester Terror Attack

The mic or talkback unit clipped very visibly to the front of her jeans pocket makes me think she was expecting to be on a tighter shot or out of vision for the beginning of the programme.

As seen here: FROM TV LIVE

Through the night last night there were a few posts about US networks broadcasting details way before the BBC and Sky.

It seems that this is because British counterterrorism officers were briefing their American counterparts, who were in turn leaking it straight to the press. I'd sort of worked out that's what was going on, but I was surprised it was happening quite so quickly.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mitchprothero/us-officials-keep-talking-about-the-manchester-attack-and

Credit to both the BBC and Sky for getting people on scene so quickly and for excellent coverage. I don't think that the vast majority of people are really going to care what she's wearing (within reason), perhaps it's a little informal but certainly nothing inappropriate. I'd much rather have more people on location than, just a few people looking completely polished. Perhaps ITV were a little slow, but they have a smaller operation than the BBC and Sky and so fewer people to just drop everything to report.

I'd noticed frustrated UK journalists tweeting about that too:

Victoria Derbyshires outfit for the field was for the most part okay. I wouldn't have worn a star sweater. Based on the quick response time a sweater, jacket and jeans seem appropriate. In the US that's the basic outfit for those first on scene - the men may be wearing button down shirt or during severe weather an athletic type shirt. But for the Nightly shows you'll more often than not see someone wearing a sport jacket and a button down.

Here's an image of Lester Holt reporting after the Pulse nightclub attack:

http://cdn.newsbusters.org/styles/blog_body-50/s3/images/2016-06-12-nbc-nn-orlandoharrysmithguns1.jpg

World is taking the extended Six, including going back to Studio E for the rest of the day's news with Reeta.

To be fair, most of Reeta's segment was international news, but it must be nice for our friends outside the UK to see Studio E in a normal broadcast, rather than as Dateline London.

What Lester Holt is wearing is fine - a jumper with a giant star on it, a biker jacket and jeans is not acceptable for a serious news broadcast I'm sorry. If you know you're going to be anchoring a 'serious' news story from an OB location you make a bit of an effort. If that's the case Ben, Huw and George should have turned up in a T-shirt and jeans because of course 'no one really cares'.

Comparisons with the U.S. are irrelevant as they have different standards and norms. In the UK it's generally the case that presenters wear 'business dress' unless they are reporting from a war zone. Anything less and you risk being in the Daily Mail.

There's an argument about what constitutes "business dress" these days, ties are very much optional for most. But this is probably a discussion for a seperate thread.

World crashed out into an ad break a few frames into Darren Bett's UK weather forecast.

World are now showing a special 100 Days +, also going out on BBC Four as usual.

She did


As Critique pointed out here, she did change within an hour. I imagine that it would be fairly difficult to co-ordinate everyone and while, in an ideal world she would have been wearing something more formal from the start, I expect the BBC simply wanted to get her on air as soon after arriving. My point wasn't trying to say that it was the best choice of dress for the event, simply that given the magnitude of the events, I expect that people's focus were on areas as opposed to her choice of clothes.

That said...

Wardrobe malfunction: Victoria Derbyshire wears a bomber jacket to report from the scene of the Mcr arena bomb #bbc #victoriaderbyshire

— David Perkins (@artdavey) May 23, 2017