It is a privilege to be a journalist at this critical time

I’ve never been one for head office. When I was asked more than thirty years ago to set up Sky News political coverage I seized the opportunity to create an American style Washington Bureau. Reporters, camera crew, picture editing, live studios and lines to broadcast – we had everything at Westminster, so no need to report in person to the bosses back in the main newsroom, which was some miles away although, admittedly, not as far from the seat of political power  as a network HQ in New York City.

Sky was the first British news broadcaster to have such a facility, though we’ve all got them now.

When the lockdown began, Sky began to take contagion precautions before the government gave us all our orders. The first measure was to confine staff to their main place of work. “At least I’ll never have to go to Osterley now,” I chortled to my colleagues at our studio on Millbank opposite Parliament, which is also conveniently walking distance from my home.

How wrong I was. Twenty-four hours later, the editor wisely decreed that all Sky News presentation during the crisis must take place from behind a cordon sanitaire around a single dedicated studio at headquarters. Since then, for the five working days of the week I have become what I never wanted to be: a commuter driving to and from the office, alone in my automobile.

Sky took the right decision for both operational and health reasons. Social distancing means that we are taking in far more remote sources with interviewees and pictures than has been normal. It is essential to be at the main hub to cope with the traffic of video information.

We are still in the same location, but the Sky “Campus” is transformed from the two converted warehouses on a muddy industrial estate where a few hundred of us started work in 1989. The warehouses have been demolished. In their place are gleaming blocks designed by award-winning architects. You can’t miss them if you look left just before you leave the two-lane flyover heading west on the M4.

Some 7,500 people work there in normal times. That’s back down to a couple of hundred “key workers” now, which certainly makes parking easier. We are under instructions not to use public transport.

The campus tries to be an antiseptic environment. Security guards take the temperature of every arrival to make sure they are not running a fever before letting them in. So far I’ve recorded “low” temperatures”. Next I walk a few hundred metres across the deserted campus directly to the studio. During my working day the only people I see in person – all keeping at least the regulation two metres distance – are a couple of floor staff and the tag team of fellow presenters before and after my shift.

There are no live guests in the studio. We are on our own. The cameras are robots. We’ve been coached to put on our own make-up. Those of the editorial and production teams who are not working from home are in another building which I’m not allowed to enter. We communicate with each other by phone and email.

These precautions have protected the news staff reasonably effectively. Those working inside the newsroom have been the most likely to go sick. On screen presenters have not been hit and nor, interestingly, have reporters and camera teams out and about, even though they have been in hospitals, care homes and Covid hotspots.

I feel enormously lucky and privileged to be able to do my job at this time. Keeping people informed about this life and death issue for the human race does matter. With so many at home there is literally a captive audience. On digital devices and TV, Sky News had 33 million users last week – 14 million alone followed the Prime Minister’s admission to intensive care. These are extraordinarily large figures for a dedicated news service and they increase the burden of responsibility on us broadcasters.

Some of my colleagues, especially on rival channels, are straining for the sublime, attempting to speak for and to the nation like Ed Murrow watching the Blitz from a rooftop or Richard Dimbleby revealing the horrors of Belsen. I think they are mistaken. Everybody is impacted by this biological disaster – it is not about us. The great reporters of the Second World War knew this very well.

The task of journalists is more mundane: to seek out information and to test its validity. The viewing public’s patience has sometimes worn thin with the political and health specialists who get to ask questions at the daily government briefings. “Gotcha” questions designed to catch spokespeople out are perhaps not the best way of adding to the sum of knowledge, especially when asked repeatedly after a satisfactory answer has already been given.

Nonetheless, I believe that scrutiny at the official briefings and even more effectively elsewhere in the mainstream media has stimulated improved performance concerning protective equipment, ventilators, the public response and the treatment of people in care homes.

At Westminster, politicians and political journalists had become increasingly disdainful of each other before this outbreak. Spin doctors were making sure that leaders rarely exposed themselves to questioning. Even if they had little honest alternative at this serious juncture, it is to ministers’ credit that this now gone into reverse and they are now exposing themselves to examination on a daily basis.

It may not last, but for now the re-opening of check points is permitting both sides – media and administrators – to do a better job serving the public.