Monkey hears reports of a growing sense of unease at ITV News whenever it throws to a live two-way with one of its correspondents, which are beginning to bear an uncanny resemblance to You’ve Been Framed!.
First up – and most seriously – was the man hit by a motorbike in the background of Ria Chatterjee’s report outside St Pancras station on Sunday about the problems afflicting Eurotunnel.
Fortunately, reported Chatterjee, the pedestrian was soon walking around and the motorcyclist was picking up his scooter.
Next up, on ITV’s Thursday lunchtime news bulletin, a chap was seen walking behind Romilly Weeks during her live broadcast from Westminster.
Nothing unusual in that, except he was rather proudly holding up a dead squirrel.
“Oh dear upstaged on the lunchtime news by a dead squirrel,” Weeks wrote on Twitter. It turned out to be a special day for squirrels all round, she said.
And finally there was Richard Edgar’s report from Davos, where a chap greedily guzzling down his lunch, with all the dignity of Ed Miliband consuming a bacon sandwich, proved an unwelcome distraction.
As Chatterjee wrote on the ITV website: “Checking the facts of the story. Putting your earpiece in properly. Making sure the sound levels are okay. Calming the butterflies in your stomach. These are the things you can control before a live broadcast.
“The rest is left to chance.”
Especially if you are on ITV News. Another one for Denis!
