Royal Birth

Nasty? Aren't people just worried in case he's developing dementia?

Ok. That's very odd stuff there from Nicholas Witchell. I hope that slip-up is not the start of a trend in his work as Royal Editor.

There could be a multitude of reasons. Thank goodness Social Media didn’t exist in 1990 when Des Lynham had a similar wobble

It wasn’t too bad at all. Often the multitude of noises in the background coupled with the perpetual speaking in one’s ear can be enough to distract anyone.

I didn’t find anything too bad in this at all. He was probably told to hand back to Ben, as the camera angles and wide shot of Ben was perfectly done. It looked planned.

Some mutual support across the industry today for Witchell, which is most welcome in context and purpose.

Unless I'm mistaken, Sky News got the news before anyone else via a source at 1.45pm? It seems everyone ran the story at 2.00pm. To be fair though I suspect all royal editors knew she had gone into labour well before it broke.

'via a source'.... or broke the embargo?

I'm curious to know when the news of her going into labour was released. Everyone, except Sky, reported it at 14:00 but behind Carrie Grace you could see a bit of a curfuffle in the newsroom

The news of of the labour broke on Sky News at 1.45pm, and then everyone else broke the news at 2.00pm.

I doubt Sky, BBC or ITN would break an embargo, it's something that a tabloid is more likely to do.

I do wonder why the royal press office said she was in labour, and the 20 mins or so later confirmed she'd had the baby, knowing she'd already given birth hours before. My point being why not just issue a statement at 2pm saying she'd given birth to a boy overnight.

I was quite surprised when I discovered it was born at 5am.

Was it maybe that the announcement of labour was hearsay from when she was, then Sky broadcast it and the royal press office confirmed it for release at 2?

Or maybe they were planning on just announcing the birth and someone at the Royal press office suddenly changed their mind and thought they ought to announce she was in labour first?

The press office didn't say that the Duchess was in labour: it said that she had gone into labour in the morning (past tense), that the Duke had been (past tense) by her side, and that an announcement "will be made soon". It was intended as fair warning that an announcement of the birth was due imminently: it was wrongly interpreted by some journalists as meaning that she was still in labour.

CNN reported before 2pm
https://twitter.com/NewDay/status/1125386033925804032

Pictures of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with their newborn son are expected in the next few hours

— Sky News Breaking (@SkyNewsBreak) May 8, 2019