Manchester Terror Attack

ITV failed their viewers or viewer, plain and simple IMO. "Everyone is in bed anyway" is such a silly excuse, if I've ever heard one. IMO that was clearly a bad editorial decision that was made. If a news organization that employs hundreds of people has no means to even offer hourly updates from a DTL cam or run crawls that is truly sad. TV is meant to be fast immediate and measured. And their limpy reaction to one of worst acts of terrorism in the country, highlights there cant be a clear strategy in place to cover breaking news overnight. And if the deaths of 22 people, many of them children, in MAJOR city, isnt a case for rolling coverage I dont know what is.

Some have said, well they didnt know what was going on. Thats why its called breaking news or a developing story. It was becoming very clear what was happening as the time unfurled, but the ice age it took reporters to get down to the scene and figure out whats was happening, led to the confusion IMO. No one said they should have been on the air immediately, but thats what the news media does, investigate and if nothing significant happened (speaker exploding, balloons popping, resulting panic) it warrants a small mention the next day and you move on. But like this case something was happening and to clearly sit back and wait, which IMO seemed like what was happening and reading tweets from the police or do nothing, is a bad strategy.

And to say the audience can use other sources such as BBC,Sky, Al Jazeera.... of course they can, but why should they? Its a dereliction of duty to the public. Why should any commercial news operation surrender their audience to any other broadcaster. Because what happens when another major event happens? They turn to those sources. Not a good business decision in the long run. Most decent well resourced news organizations can present stellar well written packages AFTER the event is over and so can a newspaper. Some have said, well this radio station and that radio station was great during the event. Why should there be low expectations from TV coverage, especially if the radio counterpart are on air and offering coverage that is considered exceptional. One has visuals & sound and one is audio only. That should be were the exception ends. And I dont think they should ONLY be applauded for their work AFTER the event has ended, but also their coverage OF the ACTUAL EVENT! But for a major news operation to pull down the shutters and turn out the lights, unconscionable IMO. I know everyone will have their own opinions, and will defend their point of view. This is my viewpoint my personal criticism and my opinion.

It's not even that, they have a news channel on air 24/7 so could hardly ignore it


You're absolutely right though. Even if ITN had called people in and got on air at some point, the few viewers interested would have already been watching the other coverage. It's not as if ITV News would provide a unique or important angle on the story.

ITV should have done more that's clear, but they didn't, however please save us all from the diatribe on how our 'second' PSB should have conducted its affairs. US broadcasters fail every day to report highly significant and important world events, because their own agendas are so incredibly myopic. ITV's editorial agenda is up there
along side the Beeb's, and all the other European broadcasters.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised that some of the commercial radio stations, stepped up to the mark overnight.

Radio reporting can be, and actually often is far more powerful than TV. TV is often 'lazy' relying too much on pictures, without any proper or considered analysis. TV offered no advantage over radio overnight Monday, you didn't need to see the mobile phone footage, to grasp the horror of what occurred.

Because we live in a pluralistic media world in a capitalist society so we can choose to watch any channel we want. ITV is no one's only choice


What audience were they surrendering? ITV News wasn't due on air overnight so no one was expecting it. It wasn't a 'commercial news operation' at that time. No one refused to watch ITV News the next day because they didn't cover it overnight

Plus even if they had there is no way they would have provided more than a brief summary. Nobody would have watched that but it seems to some here it would have been satisfactory to tick a box.

What did the BBC News do that was above and beyond normal service anyway? Just happens that they have a rolling news channel so they are on air anyway. I didn't see the News Channel go it alone or Huw Edwards drafted in at 3am, or Breakfast pulled forward to start at 5am.

Comparisons to American coverage by our American members isn't entirely comparable, we know they do breaking news differently, more instant, and have massive local news teams that broadcast hours and hours of programming each day. They also would probably have been running with the bomb angle from the second it happened.

Yep and that is the way to 'surrender your audience' - tell them there's a big news story going on so they everyone turns over out of curiosity.

Could ITV have theoretically put Granada Reports to air nationally? From what I've seen there were many reporters on scene, doing what looked like professional Facebook lives (with a proper camera and crew). They likely could have deployed a regional team that requires a smaller staff to get on air to do a news flash or even a bit of a bulletin until crews could get into Grays Inn Road. Hopefully the people at the ITV network have enough faith in their regions journalistic principles as they are with ITNs.

I say this because the broadcast and cable networks in the US have often taken a local affiliates broadcast feed for periods of time during breaking news.

If the news had broken at 1am the last couple of pages of comments might be valid. But it didn't, it broke at 10.30pm and developed over the next 90 minutes. ITN should have been in the position to go to air with a newsflash as a minimum.

What the competition did is irrelevant. If off duty taxi drivers can spring into action in response to the attack then so can journalists. It is there job after all.

Well Rkolsen, I think they could've used video reports initially recorded for Granada reports, and said that "so and so of Granada reports has this story". A few times on BBC Breakfast in the past, with other stories in the north west, they've used BBC North west's chief reporter, Dave Guest, rather than a national reporter. And indeed, this morning, BBC North west's social affairs reporter, Claire Fallon, was in Manchester with a live update on BBC Breakfast nationally.

One other point on airing a local news programme nationaly, in 1989, on the day of the Hillsborough disaster, there's a video of news reports on youtube, and at the end of one YTV Calendar bulletin, the presenter said the main news that night would be a joint ITN and YTV production. So, again, there has been such things done in the past.

The event occurred at 22:30, it wasn't clear what had actually happened until 23:30 ish

No idea what their setup is maybe it would take some thought and over plugging at their playout centre ti get their studio to air. However they'd have far fewer resources than ITN so I'm not sure what the point would be.

They and the national news would have both gone off air and gone home at 10:30 but Granada just doing a short bulletin would only have a skeleton staff. Later on when the scale if the story was evident they'd have to call in a team - newsroom as well as gallery which is no different to London except with added transport complications. The two BBC radio stations based next door presumably called in some staff but their presenters stayed on.

As you say they were doing Facebook lives, well that sort of thing these days it doesn't really matter if they're working into a gallery in Salford, London or New York

As I say a newsflash or a 'bit of a bulletin' in such a circumstance is just as pointless, it just makes people flip channels

It happened at 10:33, it didn't 'break' straight away. No news does


Yes, I had a listen and watch back of some of the coverage out of curiosity. First brief mention on 5 Live and Radio Manchester was just before 11, but no mention on either of their news bulletins at 11 (there was a networked bulletin on R Manchester) the BBC news channel didn't mention it till after 11. And when I say 'mention' in all cases it was literally just a mention of something has happened at first. The team at ITN would presumably all have left the building by then.


But it's almost certainly not a case of they couldn't do any coverage, it's more if a case of they didn't think it necessary or practical to do so