Christmas fog chaos: Thousands of news stories abandoned
22 Dec 2006
Severe fog has caused chaos in newsrooms as thousands of stories were cancelled in the run-up to Christmas. At the BBC, the country's largest broadcaster, hundreds of journalists were left standing around waiting for something to report on, but managers say it is unlikely that there will be any more news until the fog has cleared."Normally we would fit several reports into one bulletin, including maybe some foreign news and some politics," said Adrian van der Graaf-Generator, BBC deputy assistant head of newsgathering (twice removed). "But because of the fog it's harder to spot stories by looking out of the window, meaning that we have longer gaps to fill. As a result we're mostly talking about the fog all day."
Last night the Six O'Clock News despatched Natasha Kaplinsky to a small hill outside Heathrow Airport, where she rewound live on air. A spokesman for the BBC said that although Ms Kaplinsky had suffered from some confusion she had recovered well. Despite straining their eyes, viewers were still able to see Ms Kaplinsky through the fog later in the programme.
Other news organisations have followed the BBC's lead in an attempt to kill some airtime before Christmas. Sky News sent a reporter to its Skycopter with the intention of covering the fog from the air, but unfortunately it was unable to take off due to bad weather. ITV News is meanwhile still looking for one of its presenters after she went missing in the fog last night.
