Coronavirus | Television News Coverage

If the UK Government provided the signing, like the devolved administrations do, then this wouldn’t be a problem and they could have split.

I think the problem ultimately lies in the room where they're holding the press conferences. The devolved adminstrations hold their pressers on stages with sufficient space behind the speakers for the signer to move along/track the camera and allow for the 2 metre rule. The lecterns in Number 10 are so far back against the wall for social distancing, there isn't the space behind the the speakers (other than the member of the government who's always in the middle) to allow for a BSL interpreter as well. I don't think they're not providing signing in the room to be awkward, it looks like just a logistical thing.

They could do it like the Northern Ireland government do, having the interpreters on a screen as they are clearly in a different room.

With 3 speakers, that just wouldn't work.

Well it wouldn’t take much to make it work. A monitor next to each speaker for example.

Interestingly the 10 Downing Street press conferences do have sign language interpretation on YouTube.

The Scottish government regularly have 3 speakers and it manages to work for them.

Space is the key issue here. The problem is that Whitehall was not designed for modern government and so there are no television briefing facilities (compared to the modern German Federal Chancellery which includes a special briefing room with space for about 200 journalists). The briefings have been coming from the State Dining Room in 10 Downing Street which is the largest rectangular room in the Downing Street complex (roughly 12.5x7.5m) and - as you can see - there isn't much room for an additional person. The nearby Pillared Drawing Room isn't as long but is wider (about 11x8.5m) - you could possibly fit a fourth person in, but it would be a squeeze and the eponymous pillars would limit the flexibility of the space.

I assume that the government hasn't really considered adding an interpreter as the BBC have always provided one on the News Channel.



It was my understanding that the new briefing room is being constructed in the connecting 70 Whitehall (the Cabinet Office building) not Downing Street.

Does anyone know what the BBC's editorial stance is on carrying the briefings on BBC One. I do recall when it changed previously, they would only screen the PM's sessions. Yesterday they did show Hancock, but today they are choosing not to carry Patel? Not that I'm particularly bothered either way, just interested to know what goes into making the decision to carry it or not to carry it.

It does seem to be a bit hit and miss and to be honest I think they should show them. However I guess they are all on the news channel and the nations are not always shown on the news channels hence they are on the national BBC1 feeds.

I thought it was Hancock and Johnson on BBC one and anyone else was only on the news channel.

They seem to make it up as they go along, especially as there have been a few Hancock ones before Christmas that were News Channel only

Considering there is an ongoing narrative to treat this lockdown as seriously as the first lockdown, surely they should all be on BBC One as they were back in the Spring. They also rate better than Pointless.