London Tower Block Fire

The wider issue is, that it would appear regulation allowed the use of flammable cladding. The regulations have not been updated. Successive governments are to blame. The hard reality is (I would think), that if the company that installed the cladding and so on, were within the regulation, they have not done anything wrong, and no one can be held directly to account, because no one has done anything wrong, at least directly. Now there is a report from 2013 that called for sprinklers to be installed, it was not acted on, so some blame could be directed at whoever decided to ignore the report, i.e. the government.

What we are seeing is symptomatic of all disasters. There's no right and no wrong way of dealing with this type of incident be it rail or plane crash or terrorism. The powers that be have by sheer nature of the incident unfolding have to go with the flow. Some politicians have chosen to exploit the incident in it's proximity. Surely this is wrong. The efforts at the scene should be 100pct on recovery, making the area as safe as possible and preparing for an investigation. The presence of Politicians empathising or otherwise does nothing to help these processes which must take priority. Work behind the scenes such as the meeting in the Church at which the PM was in attendance is by far more useful. If there are grievances they can be addressed in the inquest / enquiry process.

As for the News Media, they must follow due process, especially the broadcast sector. Indeed if they adopted a sensationalist approach of the Press that would only exacerbate the issues of the bereaved and injured.

Quick suggestion - should we all just go back to discussing the presentation and coverage of the fire and the aftermath. We all clearly have differing views on who/what is to blame and who should and shouldn't have done what. However, this is TV Forum , not a political forum. There are places for people to discuss these issues, but this is not one of them places, and the conversation isn't moving forward.

Now, back to the coverage.

I'm afraid it's not that simple, as I was trying to point out. There's a clear diverse opinion as to how Politicians have (or haven't) dealt with the issues arising in the hours and days after it, and the coverage of that. It's impossible to divorce the event, the political reaction and the media coverage of it.

Some of the posts were linking to the presentation, which is fair enough, but some appear to be mostly political opinion, such as:


The point I am trying to make is that some people are talking mainly about the political aspect. If the political reaction is involved in the coverage, then I don't see that as an issue. It is just some people are heading down the path of giving opinion of the political issues, rather than the coverage of the political issues.

Was there any restrictions placed on reporting?

It was noticeable that not long before 8pm there seemed to be a marked reduction on reporting of the protests.

On Sky, Sophy Ridge was reporting at the scene only for there to be an apology for losing her and no live anchor coverage has been seen on Sky since and neither her.

Don't think so, the BBC News channel were quite happy to have a camera on the ground behind the Police corden at NBH and were pooling helicopter shots from above Portland Place. News channel stuck with the pictures for about 10 minutes before cutting away and then re-joining a little while later.

From a BBC standpoint there were thoughts of pulling out from the live anchor position due to increased hostility to the media, but then things calmed down and carried on as planned.

One thing I think we can all agree on is that the emergency services have been heroes.

Yes, the BBC don't want another smashed up satellite truck, remember the Tottenham riot in 2011?

They have not done (if within regulation, as you say) anything illegal. Not necessarily the same thing.

Can I request everyone tries to stick to the presentation related aspects of this tragic event. If you wish to discuss the politics and other aspects please do so elsewhere, perhaps over on https://www.metropol247.co.uk.