BBC Breakfast - 16th July onwards

I do wonder mentally how it takes it's toll on presenters too. We can opt out and like you I've really rationed my news consumption as much as possible, but for someone having to repeat the news for 3 hours a day as part of their working routine it must be pretty tough. I guess for some you'd almost have to become immune to it and try and leave it at work.

It does my head in hearing the same headlines for the fourth time, so god knows what it does to them. Those doing 6 and 10 as well having to sit there for 6 odd-hours before hand writing this stuff and researching about it - I simply couldn't do it.

I imagine there's a strong support network behind the scenes for anyone who needs it. In my workplace there's plenty of numbers for mental health to ring i imagine it's the same for broadcasters especially.

I hope so. Journalists are looked upon by many in this country as the lowest of the low and yes as the News Of The World scandal showed some are total ****.

But its been those journalists that have for the last few months have had to break to us the terrifying numbers of deaths amongst other things. The effect on them has been unique but equally devastating.

As someone who trained to be a journalist myself but who never went into the industry due to ill health I look at the likes of Huw Edwards and Mary Nightingale and know full well that If I had to do that job it would send me mad.

On a side note if anyone is suffering then get help.

Yep, that's what did it for me too. I spent that Friday with a print-out of the weekend's TX schedules, crossing off live events as they dropped like flies. The following Tuesday was a weird day too - my early shift *and* late shift called in sick, then we realised the replacement early shift had recently spent a day with some people who'd fallen ill, so sent him home too. I then spent some time giving a crash-course in our department to some OB colleagues who now had no bookings, while trying to gather together what I might need to work from home. I've not been back in the building since.

(yes, we're going massively off-topic for Breakfast. I'll report my own post in a moment...)

I think it's a bit different if you're working on it, rolling news can be a bit of a factory, you end up just churning it out without really having a chance to think about it. I know when I worked in that area I didn't really think much about the actual stories, more what sort of day i'd had and how good/bad the output was.


What I found the worst wasn't the news but colleagues, we have long shifts and they tend to be the same people. In the weeks leading up to lockdown I was working with a couple of people who were obsessed with the spread of the virus.

One was sitting at work looking at a global statistics website giving regular verbal updates on numbers of infected and dead people. Then the week before one who kept talking about the latest horrors in Madrid and the like. Me and another colleague, both with pre-existing conditions and other ongoing medical issues were anxious enough already.

It's important to be able to choose how much news and when you want to consume. You shouldn't bury your head in the sand obviously but it's important to take it at your own pace

I'd probably agree with that - when I worked in a control room that handled a lot of news content, lots of bad stuff things happening in the real world often meant I would be too busy to sit and take any of it in. I think the only exception was during the riots in 2011 when I was sitting watching live helicopter footage of people marauding alarmingly close to my flat.


ah yes, I've worked with people like that. I guess everyone has different ways of digesting and processing the news but they should also be considerate that not everyone may appreciate their way of doing things.

Mrs Cusack works in the events industry and she was having work cancelled (or postponed to the autumn, now being cancelled again) from the beginning of February, because delegates or speakers weren't travelling to the UK so we were aware that something was happening but didn't think it would get to the point of a lockdown in the UK, afterall, this was just like swine flu in 2009 and that didn't really effect the UK.

We went shopping on the 14th March and it was carnage, like Christmas Eve on speed! For me, work decided on 13th March that we were all working from home after that day, then most of us were furloughed from 1st April.

I'm sorry I was the one who sent this thread into this direction, but it's all been very interesting, I think. Funnily enough in the week before lockdown, when I was working from home and my partner was still going into work, as I was staying in bed for longer (I've not been missing the commute) and they were already out of it, I could hear Breakfast before I could see it. Initially this served as a bit of reassurance, in a submarine-captains-listening-to-Today fashion ("Oh, Dan and Louise are still on, it can't be that bad"), but then it would lead me to wondering where they were sitting and if it was starting to resemble the Wartime Broadcasting Service on screen.

In fact in my old house I used to hear quite a lot of news through my upstairs neighbour getting up ten minutes before me and putting the radio on, because I could hear it right through my ceiling. I remember being woken up by Nessum Dorma one morning and realising that meant Pavarotti had died. One morning I could hear the voice of Paul O'Grady and assumed that he had died - it wasn't long after his heart attack - and being surprised when I turned on the telly and he was still alive. I don't know what he was on for.

The mention of having holidays booked around lockdown would have been quite common, I think, because presumably quite a lot of companies would be getting people to use them up before the end of the finanical year. Two of my colleagues had the week beginning the 16th off, which must have been the most incredible culture shock - leaving the office pretty much as usual on the Friday, then coming back to work with the office completely out of bounds.

Actually a few weeks ago we were watching Noughts and Crosses, recorded off BBC1 back in March and April, and it had the Ten after every episode - so it was very strange looking at the headlines after each episode, getting more and more catastrophic week by week,

That's a good point about the familiarity - we kind of went from the view that it's not going to affect us to many people were probably going to get it in the next few weeks but most will survive it. Obviously some communities have been far more severly affected than others but early worries for me about lots of people inevitably going into self isolation didn't really occur, and in terms of on screen talent at least on TV there have only been a few notable absenses with GMB, sadly, being the most affected. If they have been affected by high sick rates behind the scenes well it hasn't affected output noticeably at all.

According to Garry Owen towards the end of Wales today the regional breakfast bulletins return tomorrow apparently.

Only the nations will have morning opts. Scotland, Wales and NI will have local news meanwhile viewers in England will get a weather forecast.