Trump testing positive for Covid - presentation only

I've not really paid too much attention since last night. Jon Sopel (excellent as he normally is) did in my opinion get a bit carried away with his live 'breaking news' slot towards the end of the 10pm news, when the news broke Trump was being flown to hospital.

Sopel quoted the White House statement, saying the move was only 'a precaution'. However, he then pointed out that that's exactly what No10 said about BoJo's hospitalisation in April, and reminded us of the subsequent trajectory that all took.

I think if Sopel had pre recorded that piece, he (or someone else) might have had it toned it down slightly.

I do remember he got similarly overexcited during the first moments of the Notre Dame fire, repeatedly stating that the Paris fire service were doing nothing, (because the single camera feed we had, didn't show any activity) It transpired later on that evening, they were very busy saving artwork and artefacts from the church.

I actually tweeted Laura Trevelyan about it. I asked if it’s a backup incase the line goes down? I got a one word answer: Yes.

Yes!!

— Laura Trevelyan (@LauraTrevelyan) October 3, 2020

Don’t see the need for 3 presenters there. Surely 2 would have been enough if the Washington line dropped couldn’t Shaun ley have picked up coverage?

How many "presenters" do they have based in Washington?

I assume other than Katty Kay anyone else over there is also a reporter.

Katty Kay’s the main presenter. Laura Trevelyan you could say as a backup as although she’s in NYC it’s a short plane/train ride down and she filled in most days when Beyond 100 Days were at 2 and Katty was gone.

Then there’s the semi retired Jane O’Brien whose in Vermont or New Hampshire that I’ve seen in studio about four days the past month. Those three I would say are the core presenters.

James Reynolds spending time in C rather than E of yesterday.

Although not based in Washington, Michelle Fleury has covered Beyond 100 Days before.

They're trying to work out what actually is going on from the limited information and mixed messages they're getting from Washington. What else can they do when they know they can't trust any information that's given through official channels?

In the last day they've had a doctors press conference that contradicted the official line. This was followed by an 'off the record' briefing that made the situation sound a lot worse than the doctors were making out. Then there was a video of him in hospital released, not only wasn't it known when it was recorded it had obvious edits where coughs had been removed. That was followed by photos of him signing blank pieces of paper with a felt tip. You can't blame the media for reading between the lines.

They don't even have the fallback of Trump's Twitter account to report as he's not using it* (there have been some posts but they almost certainly aren't him)

There is a bigger story, I'm not sure it's getting as much coverage here because the names involved aren't that well known, but it's not just Trump but a lot of his associates and party too. More of them are testing positive every day



*that in itself is possibly an indicator of something... maybe

Jon Sopel has also presented Beyond 100 Days, but is more an editorial role

Jon is being kept busy with the excellent Americast podcast. He and Emily (and the other one who's name I can't remember) did a special edition on the day that Trump's diagnosis was announced, and are preparing the next episode

Problem is that things move so fast in Trumpland that they're out of date quickly. I hadn't listened to this weeks normal episode about the debate yet, it's already irrelevant

Anthony Zurcher

Surprised I haven't seen more mention of that podcast here actually given how there seemed to be quite the fanbase for the Jon & Emily pairing on the NC years back. It's a great little podcast actually - seems to manage to cater both to those slightly less familiar with US politics and those more au fait with it quite well which is no mean feat.
I could do without the 'Sopes' and 'Maitlis' nicknames but that's a minor complaint -I think they're both superb journalists.