UK Prime Minister | TV News Coverage

Different broadcasters have different ways of categorising obits but speaking very broadly often the top tier/'category 1' level is just the handful of top royals where there is a very specific to-the-letter procedure with flags and anthems and so on.

The next level would typically include the rest of the royals, prime minister, opposition leader, US president, the Pope, former PMs and other notable world figures, with these being more treated as 'breaking news' and more freedom to handle the story as felt suitable. So depending on circumstances news about those people could end up looking like anything from a usual breaking news interruption to something that looks a lot like a Category 1 (which is more or less what happened with Diana).

And then there's a whole other subsection of figures who wouldn't get an interruption to programmes but do have entire retrospective documentaries in the can ready to go out.

Anyway, all very morbid and let's hope there's no need to be thinking about any of that sort of thing any time soon.

Off topic but I noticed today that the obit for Honor Blackman was voiced by Nick Higham. Since he left the BBC these have generally been dubbed over by David Sillitoe. Maybe this wasn’t possible in the current circumstances.

I don't think I'd realised that Nick Higham had left. (Some newspaper obituaries have been on the shelf so long that their writer has predeceased the subject.)

The BBC have an Obituary Unit whose job it is to keep this kind of thing up to date - I'd imagine most have been recorded with a guide track, but would get revoiced before use by a journo on shift, especially if a few details had to be added at the end. On rare occasions I've heard them go out voiced by Nick Serpell, the obituary editor.

In places I've worked they've just kept the script on ENPS or equivalent so it can be revoiced if need be. They're left ready to go

It's not just if the reporter has left, they'll often need an update or tweak, these days normally to add in twitter tributes etc. In which case someone on duty will do the rewriting and re-voicing

It's why there's rarely any pieces to camera in obits

Michael Gove to speak to BBC Breakfast this morning at 0730.

He managed to pause his own video. An improvement?

Being charitable to Gove, thats not the video conferencing platform automatically pausing video to favour audio during low bandwidth conditions is it?

I've seen the exposure factor mentioned before. It was initally used to explain the death of the 30 year old doctor in Wuhan who had originally raised the alarm. If it is the case, it's about the only long term mitigation that is possible, considering that all of us will at some point be exposed to the virus, unless we lock ourselves into an environmentally sealed room for the rest of our lives.


Agreed. My wife and I just sat in stunned silence when we saw the news last night, it's one of those things that still shocks, even if it isn't unexpected

Sound issues with Kay at Downing Street. She’s interviewing Michael Gove. We can’t hear or see Kay, but can see and hear Gove’s responses to her (inaudible) questions.

I’m watching Sky News online.


Edit: Adam Boulton has taken over (in-vision) at 0856hrs and is continuing the interview with Mr. Gove.

Edit 2: Mr. Gove announced he had to go to the cabinet meeting and he disappeared from the screen. We then got a screen showing “Michael’s iPhone”.

I've heard it as the explanation as to why some health are professionals have had it so badly depute not having any pre existing conditions - they encounter it from multiple patients, possibly it's got a slightly different mutation from each patient? It's also why self isolation within a household is important.

Thing with Boris is that he and his colleagues all encounter many people as part of their job, particularly those in the dept of health. They didn't seem to be as careful as they should have been in hindsight with terrible consequences.

Mind you at least they started to take it seriously and take precautions. On the other side of the Atlantic Trump's administration isn't going as far as our government has in terms of changing how they work and do things like press conferences. He's been a lot more reckless and it's not been an issue oddly

Yes - I believe this is the discussion about 'viral load'. The more exposure you have to the virus the more chances it has to take hold in various places in your respiratory system (as it is unlikely that each exposure will be in precisely the same place?). This is why people with Covid-19 who are being cared for at home should be minimising contact with their carers (sleeping in separate rooms, using separate bathrooms if possible etc.). It was noticed very early on that carers of those with Covid-19 often got it worse than those who they were caring for.

I think that is what happens with FaceTime when someone else is calling?