This has amused me this morning, BBC correspondent Nick Robinson was filming a link for the BBC on Wednesday when a protestor decided to put his placard right behind him on a live link to the studio. Sadly Nick didn’t like this very much and lost his temper and it has become a bit of a YouTube hit.
He has posted about it yesterday on his blog which says:
If you were watching the 6 O’Clock News last night, you may have seen a “Troops Out” sign on a large pole being waved behind my head.
I have a confession. After the news was over, I grabbed the sign and ripped it up – apparently you can watch video of my sign rage in full glorious technicolour on the web. I lost my temper and I regret that. However, as I explained afterwards to the protesters who disrupted my broadcast, there are many opportunities to debate whether the troops should be out of Afghanistan without the need to stick a sign on a long pole and wave it in front of a camera.
I am a great believer in free speech but I also care passionately about being able to do my job reporting and analysing one of the most important political stories for years.
Chris Norton is the founder of Prohibition and an award winning communications consultant with more than twenty years’ experience. He was a lecturer at Leeds Beckett University and has had a varied PR career having worked both in-house and in a number of large consultancies. He is an Integrated PR and social media blogger and writes on a wide variety of blogs across a huge amount of topics from digital marketing, social media marketing right through to technology and crisis management.
