Moira Stuart in early-morning cock-up!

Absolutely horrific cock-up this morning just after 6am with Moira Stuart.

First report on Iran's nuclear activities, then back to Moira for a 2-way with Rita Chakrabati standing outside somewhere freezing.

Moira gets four or 5 words into a question which obviously she doesn't know what exactly she's meant to be asking. She bumbles, fuffles, umms and errs and then goes silent staring at the camera totally helpless.

The director obviously craps his pants and cuts straight to a bemused looking Rita who's obviously willing Moira to give her a question, but poor old Moira hasn't a clue what she's talking about.

Eventually (after about 3 or 4 seconds of silence) Moira just stammers "Rita...te...tell us what you..c...can".

No specially-written questions on autocue or on paper, either. Dear oh dear.

Any newsreader will always be totally clued-up about current events, and even if or when autocue totally messes up or a catastrophic technical problem stops the newsreader from seeing the running order, questions, script etc., they should always have enough knowledge of the topic in-hand to keep things going.

Moira isn't a trained journalist, so I guess it was inevitable that one day, she would give us this monumental f*ck-up which occured a few minutes ago.

I guess the only upside is that not many people will have been watching. But I was, and my god did I cringe into my cornflakes...

Please BBC, can I be one of your early-morning braindead talking-heads, too? £75k for JUST reading off autocue and dishing out pre-scripted questions written by proper journalists? Money for old rope...

PS - I know some of you TIVO early mornings on BBC1, so a video capture would be amazing if you can supply one!

Well Moira isn't that bad, she's a bit of a classic if you ask me, I'm quite fond of her. And because she is so experienced, I don't think it matters she isn't a trained journalist, it's only the BBC that care about that because I sure don't.

This simply highlights are far wider problem, that of presenters and reporters interviewing each other. Quite honestly if any so called journalist can't articulate their 'story' without being questioned by a fellow presenter, then it's they who are failing to do their job properly. The reporter should be addressing the viewer directly, not as is so often the case the viewer 'eavesdropping' on a conversation.

There's nothing wrong with having a non journalist reading the news, BBC TV had that exclusively up until about 1980, and it's still practiced on BBC Radio 2, 3 and 4, and their bulletins are far better for it IMHO.

But live two-way interviews are never presented as the remote reporter addressing the viewer directly. That would be a piece to camera, in a package or something. In a two-way, the reporter is effectively being interviewed by the studio anchor. Now whether that's how it should be is another question, but that's generally how it is .

A bit harsh. Training means nothing, I know of utterly useless fully trained journalists. Whereas having over 20 years experience makes her more than qualified

Quorida,

What would you advocate as a solution to someone (any human being, for that matter) making a mistake in their job? I would be interested to know if a few fluffed lines really is a sackable offence. Perhaps the "cock up" arose out of technical or feedback difficulties that the viewer could never have witnessed, and only Moira and the gallery were aware of????

Anyway, I will most probably be shot down for jumping to Moira Stuart's defence, but I consider her to be an excellent presenter and not deserving to be replaced by a "qualified" journalist, who could just as easily be beset by technical problems or even human error.

James

This is TV Forum, the forum which gave birth to branding guidelines for the typing of BIG MOIRA .

If anything, a parade will be held in your honour.

totally agree... everyone makes mistakes... what's the fuss all about... she could have suddenly experienced a searing pain in one of her temples and thought she was having a stroke... or realised that she'd left the gas on or anything... maybe some lesbians were attaching themselves quietly to her chair.

whatever it was... 20 seconds of error in a 25 year career is hardly the end of British broadcasting as we know it.

LEAVE BIG MOIRA ALONE

sorry Nini,

BIG MOIRA

If Lesbians were attaching themseleves to her seat then she would have naturally been distracted but Moira would have known how to handle them.

Its the first time i 've heard of any problems in all of Moira's lengthy career , it shows what a quality presenter she has been for the beeb.
Compared to another presenter kaplinsky who is a numptie and made these type of gaffes about once a month when i saw her on breakfast Moira has been exemplary and above criticism.

I agree that Moira is one of the best presenters though I bet it would have been interesting to see what happened.
One thing I have picked up on though is that whenever Moira interviews someone during the news summary she seems to read the link into the interview (Eg. Well joining us on the line now is ...) then a good morning greeting and the question all in one sentence so it sounds heavily rushed. Maybe if a few pauses were added it wouldn't sound as rushed.

But if they didn't want you first time, then who's to say they'd want you this time?