UPDATE: Media Mob Cheers Royal Baby Boy
4TH UPDATE: The international media mob holed up in front of London’s St. Mary’s Hospital no longer has to wait for the birth of the Royal Baby. It’s a boy and even the most hardened reporter and photographer and camera operator cheered the news as loudly as groups of UK greeters. ”How rare is it for the global media to have a story this positive to report,” CNN said on air. Right now ABC, NBC, CNN, FNC, Sky, BBC World, CNN International, France 24 but not Al Jazeera are reporting live from the UK and awaiting the baby’s name after the Royal Proclamation was placed on the special Buckingham Palace easel. “Right now there’s just not that much to photograph,” one of the Fox News anchors admitted to viewers. There will be the customary celebratory gun salutes in Green Park and at the Tower of London, providing fodder for global TV coverage. According to TVNewser, the Royal press release went out at 12:31 PM PT with Max Foster reporting on CNN, Amy Kellogg on Fox News and Jim Macedaon on MSNBC. NBC News and ABC News both produced special reports. Brian Williams anchored on NBC, with Natalie Morales at St. Mary’s and Keir Simmons at Buckingham Palace. David Muir anchored on ABC, with Amy Robach at St. Mary’s and Barbara Walters with Dr. Jennifer Ashton contributing from the New York studio.
UK and international broadcasters including crews from ABC, NBC and Fox have been on tenterhooks not just these 9 hours of royal labor but for weeks ahead of the infant’s arrival, Kate Middleton’s first child with Prince William, aka the Duke of Cambridge. The group got a jolt at 7:30 AM (London time) when Kensington Palace formally emailed media that the Duchess of Cambridge was in the early stages of labor and had arrived at the hospital by car with her husband. In the U.S., where it was 2:30 AM ET, CNN was the first cable news net to start reporting, per TVNewser. Fox News Channel cut in to programming with live updates from Robert Gray starting at 2:42 AM ET. FNC correspondent Amy Kellogg and anchor Martha MacCallum have been and will continue to provide updates from London. ABC broke into coverage with a brief special report at 2:37 AM after it’s been running a Royal Baby section on its website. The story also led NBC’s Today, ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS This Morning. MSNBC chimed in at the top of the 5 AM hour. Sky News and CNN International stayed with their correspondents in front of the hospital and Buckingham Palace for most of the UK day, although CNN cut away more often. BBC World provided updates, but the mainstream broadcasters in the UK and France kept to their schedules. There certainly has been endless on-air speculation and filler from the international 24-hour news channels. Largely, the correspondents have spent London’s hottest day of the year talking to midwives and royal watchers about everything from the merits of coconut water to possible names.
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