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Broadcast posted:
From triumph to tragedy
ITV London News' editor Stuart Thomas and his team went from covering the city's triumph in Singapore to the carnage of last Thursday's terrorist attack. By Kate Bulkley.
Thursday 7 July started off as a bit of a hangover-type day for everyone on the London Tonight team, including 32-year-old Stuart Thomas, the programme's editor and boss of ITV London News.
On Wednesday the show was presented from Singapore following the IOC announcement. The 30-minute programme was the culmination of months of covering what was at that point the biggest London story of the year so, after air, a certain amount of celebration was inevitable. Still, Thomas was only a few minutes later than usual when he walked into his Gray's Inn Road office at 8.15am.
Regular meetings commenced but a power surge at 8.51am that caused some equipment to fail was the first indication that this would be no ordinary day.
When Thomas emerged at 9.20am, he sensed that a story was brewing. By then rolling channels ITV News, Sky News and BBC News 24 were reporting an incident on the tube linked to the power surge. About 20 minutes later, both ITV and BBC's rolling news channels began broadcasting traffic camera pictures of bemused commuters leaving Kings Cross Station, pictures Sky News did not have access to. Thomas dispatched camerawoman Kate Sherwin to the area.
When the double-decker bus bomb exploded at 9.47am in Tavistock Square, Sherwin was nearby, heard the noise and headed towards it. Pictures from her camera were the first taken at the scene by any news channel. At the same time, ITV News producer Emily Rueben was also in the area walking to work. She was drawn to the noise of the explosion and provided on-the-spot commentary by mobile phone.
Back at Gray's Inn Road, David Mannion, the editor-in-chief of ITV News, made a call to put continuous live coverage on ITV1. It was 10.12am.
"I think the bus explosion was the 'second plane moment' for us," recalls Thomas, comparing the bombings to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. "As soon as that second plane hit the tower, we instantly knew it was terrorism. It was the same here with the bus."
Sitting in the open atrium of the ITN building four days after what is starting to be known as 7/7, Thomas cradles a paper cup of tea and apologises in a soft voice for not being able to remember precise times from that Thursday morning.
Indeed, Thomas is perhaps more subdued than a man with his CV might be expected to be. He was LBC's youngest news editor in 2000 and has since been editor of London News Direct, the rolling news radio station, launch news editor of Channel 4's Rise and, last March, led the relaunch of London Tonight. What comes across when talking to him is a quiet determination and a refreshing sense of slightly wide-eyed anticipation, something that can easily be lost in older, more jaded members of the Fourth Estate.
He terms "bizarre" the fact that the Olympics, such a happy story for London, was juxtaposed with such a terrible tragedy. However, in the heat of the moment, he "just got on with it", as did his team.
"The next update for the London team at this time of day is the 11am bulletin," says Thomas. "But it became clear that to split to regional news when there was this massive story going on in London would be pointless." Mannion agreed and the decision was made to merge Thomas' London news team with both the 24-hour ITV News Channel team, headed by Ben Rayner, and the ITV News team, headed by Deborah Turness. For Thomas, the day was the vindication of a decision made in 2003 to locate the national, international and regional ITV news groups at Gray's Inn Road to make better use of shared resources. "Last Thursday was really the first time we all worked as one," he says.
Once the regional news bulletins had been scrapped, Thomas began pulling on the regional resources. Six satellite trucks were brought in from the regions and reporters followed. It meant ITV was able to be on site at all of the key locations. "We had enough people, so reporters were able to cover each other. When one went off to do news gathering, the other could stay and do lives," he says.
The key challenge for Thomas and ITV was communication and co-ordination with the crews and reporters because the mobile phone network was overloaded. "We worked out that text messages worked better." But mobiles helped the channel in another way - people sent in stills and videos, a resource Thomas had been using for some time on London Tonight. "There was a lot of vetting. Shots of people on the tube were fine but with the bus explosion, there were pictures I saw that you didn't want anyone to see."
For once, Thomas remembers not looking too closely at rival channels but simply covering the story as best he could.
There was no London Tonight on Thursday with the coverage only broken by Emmerdale and The Bill. The news day ended with a two-hour special hosted by Trevor McDonald from 9pm.
After a few hours' sleep in a local hotel, Thomas was back in early the next day as a sense of normality returned to the newsroom. Having returned from Singapore only hours before, long-time London Tonight presenter Alastair Stewart's sign-off for his 6pm Friday bulletin (written by Thomas) summed up the highs and lows of the previous two days. "Just 48 hours ago, I was talking to you from Singapore on one of the greatest days in London's history. Yesterday was one of its darkest. We've seen off evil before and we will again. Have a safe weekend."
ITV London News' editor Stuart Thomas and his team went from covering the city's triumph in Singapore to the carnage of last Thursday's terrorist attack. By Kate Bulkley.
Thursday 7 July started off as a bit of a hangover-type day for everyone on the London Tonight team, including 32-year-old Stuart Thomas, the programme's editor and boss of ITV London News.
On Wednesday the show was presented from Singapore following the IOC announcement. The 30-minute programme was the culmination of months of covering what was at that point the biggest London story of the year so, after air, a certain amount of celebration was inevitable. Still, Thomas was only a few minutes later than usual when he walked into his Gray's Inn Road office at 8.15am.
Regular meetings commenced but a power surge at 8.51am that caused some equipment to fail was the first indication that this would be no ordinary day.
When Thomas emerged at 9.20am, he sensed that a story was brewing. By then rolling channels ITV News, Sky News and BBC News 24 were reporting an incident on the tube linked to the power surge. About 20 minutes later, both ITV and BBC's rolling news channels began broadcasting traffic camera pictures of bemused commuters leaving Kings Cross Station, pictures Sky News did not have access to. Thomas dispatched camerawoman Kate Sherwin to the area.
When the double-decker bus bomb exploded at 9.47am in Tavistock Square, Sherwin was nearby, heard the noise and headed towards it. Pictures from her camera were the first taken at the scene by any news channel. At the same time, ITV News producer Emily Rueben was also in the area walking to work. She was drawn to the noise of the explosion and provided on-the-spot commentary by mobile phone.
Back at Gray's Inn Road, David Mannion, the editor-in-chief of ITV News, made a call to put continuous live coverage on ITV1. It was 10.12am.
"I think the bus explosion was the 'second plane moment' for us," recalls Thomas, comparing the bombings to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. "As soon as that second plane hit the tower, we instantly knew it was terrorism. It was the same here with the bus."
Sitting in the open atrium of the ITN building four days after what is starting to be known as 7/7, Thomas cradles a paper cup of tea and apologises in a soft voice for not being able to remember precise times from that Thursday morning.
Indeed, Thomas is perhaps more subdued than a man with his CV might be expected to be. He was LBC's youngest news editor in 2000 and has since been editor of London News Direct, the rolling news radio station, launch news editor of Channel 4's Rise and, last March, led the relaunch of London Tonight. What comes across when talking to him is a quiet determination and a refreshing sense of slightly wide-eyed anticipation, something that can easily be lost in older, more jaded members of the Fourth Estate.
He terms "bizarre" the fact that the Olympics, such a happy story for London, was juxtaposed with such a terrible tragedy. However, in the heat of the moment, he "just got on with it", as did his team.
"The next update for the London team at this time of day is the 11am bulletin," says Thomas. "But it became clear that to split to regional news when there was this massive story going on in London would be pointless." Mannion agreed and the decision was made to merge Thomas' London news team with both the 24-hour ITV News Channel team, headed by Ben Rayner, and the ITV News team, headed by Deborah Turness. For Thomas, the day was the vindication of a decision made in 2003 to locate the national, international and regional ITV news groups at Gray's Inn Road to make better use of shared resources. "Last Thursday was really the first time we all worked as one," he says.
Once the regional news bulletins had been scrapped, Thomas began pulling on the regional resources. Six satellite trucks were brought in from the regions and reporters followed. It meant ITV was able to be on site at all of the key locations. "We had enough people, so reporters were able to cover each other. When one went off to do news gathering, the other could stay and do lives," he says.
The key challenge for Thomas and ITV was communication and co-ordination with the crews and reporters because the mobile phone network was overloaded. "We worked out that text messages worked better." But mobiles helped the channel in another way - people sent in stills and videos, a resource Thomas had been using for some time on London Tonight. "There was a lot of vetting. Shots of people on the tube were fine but with the bus explosion, there were pictures I saw that you didn't want anyone to see."
For once, Thomas remembers not looking too closely at rival channels but simply covering the story as best he could.
There was no London Tonight on Thursday with the coverage only broken by Emmerdale and The Bill. The news day ended with a two-hour special hosted by Trevor McDonald from 9pm.
After a few hours' sleep in a local hotel, Thomas was back in early the next day as a sense of normality returned to the newsroom. Having returned from Singapore only hours before, long-time London Tonight presenter Alastair Stewart's sign-off for his 6pm Friday bulletin (written by Thomas) summed up the highs and lows of the previous two days. "Just 48 hours ago, I was talking to you from Singapore on one of the greatest days in London's history. Yesterday was one of its darkest. We've seen off evil before and we will again. Have a safe weekend."
NW
It's good that it's going to charity, but I don't think I can afford £501.00
time_warp posted:
It's good that it's going to charity, but I don't think I can afford £501.00
TW
It's good that it's going to charity, but I don't think I can afford £501.00
wow, that's doubled in under two hours!
nwtv2003 posted:
time_warp posted:
It's good that it's going to charity, but I don't think I can afford £501.00
wow, that's doubled in under two hours!