Mount Etna - Spectacular coverage

Jeremy Thompson proved himself to be Britain's best news anchor today with his live coverage from Mount Etna. Anchoring Live at Five from the top of Etna (great opening titles with JT appearing on camera after the 'This is SKY NEWS' ident), he was exaggerating the situtation in his emotional voice. It was the perfect thing to do in silly season - blow up (no pun intended a story) - that as Jonathan Hunt (reporting from the bottom of the volcano) said was already dying down with the local people not concerned anymore.

The best shots of the volcano are at night, the footage during the day reduces the impact of the erruption.

I was suprised that JT didn't refer to the fact that he spent time coverage the Monseratt erruption a couple of years ago.
'It's now being turned into a complete river of lava' was his line from a report at the time that was used in the 9 o'clock News ad (remember that?)


nb: I have seen BBC or ITN news today so I couldn't comment on what they have done.


(Edited by SkyNews at 12:03 am on July 26, 2001)

Take it you mean you didn't see either of them!

Ne way, I saw it as well, and it did look quite nice on live @ 5, when they cut back to that second presenter who wasn't really expecting it when the camera pulled back up from that burning bush and then he quickly smartened up his shirt!

Cheers,

(Edited by liam at 12:21 am on July 26, 2001)

Didn't see Sky at 5 - my sister will insist on watching Nickelodeon or something!

But, the Mount Etna story was really over the weekend and into Monday and Tuesday. I thought Brian Barron's reports on the BBC were really good as were Sky's. Must have been quite good for the broadcasters just to move their correspodents from Genoa to Sicily - but I bet they wish the eruption had gone on a bit longer to fill some more air time in the days when there seems to be no main story!

Kay Burley was by herself presenting for 4 hours today because JT was at Etna. Unfortunately, there appears to have been a misjudgement over the news value of the story. A bit of waste to send an anchor to Italy just to present 1 programme & do a couple of other pieces-to-camera.

Argh - but the volcano has re-erupted and the BBC man (judging from 6 and 10) seemingly has gone!!

Kay for four hours though.... can't be bad!!