What just happened with Nicholas Witchell on BBC news?

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He was supposed to be saying something about the royal birthday but couldn't put a sentence together. He said excuse me while I gather my thoughts, then he had to just hand back to the studio.

Surely he cant be that overcome with emotion about the new baby? It made me wonder if something was wrong with him. Bit worrying.

they were shouting at him "dont go there,we said do NOT GO THERE!" As he mentioned the babies anglo... and feared he was delving into blakc white territory.
this was my dads theory from the arm chair.he was being screamed at off screen and so then just lost it.

An inexperienced reporter may stumble over tech problems, Nicholas Witchell is a seasoned professional. It was completely out of character. I do hope he is ok.

He is very experienced. I found it quite uncomfortable that he couldn’t do his piece to camera about a baby being born. Poor man. I. Sure he will be cringing about this all night.

I read it as a mild panic attack. He stumbled earlier on in the interview and all of a sudden lost it. I’ve done it and it’s awful. Feels like the room is closing in on you.

Poor lad.

I assumed that he suddenly had a moment of enlightenment and thought ‘Fuck this professional toadying! I’m 65 years old and standing in the dark on a Bank Holiday across the road from a little royal easel, talking about nonsense. What am I thinking???’

ChippyMinton

Just a momentary lapse, given that he was ad-libbing perfectly well until that point. Lost his train of thought and sensibly handed back

This ^^

Perhaps he’d had one too many glasses of champers

I hope he's OK. First thought was hope he's not having a stroke. Second thought being told not to delve into baby ethnicity territory. Even though he wasn't but suspect someone was panicking somewhere when he said about Anglo-American.

I think he was starting to say something about this being the first mixed race baby in the royal family and then decided it wasnt really appropriate/relevant, couldn’t think of something else to say instead and so changed his mind and handed back to the studio

I assumed that he suddenly had a moment of enlightenment and thought ‘Fuck this professional toadying! I’m 65 years old and standing in the dark on a Bank Holiday across the road from a little royal easel, talking about nonsense. What am I thinking???’

This has to be it.

It was very odd. I hope he's ok too.

I thought he looked very pale and tired and had commented on that to DH immediately before NW fluffed. It was very strange.

There's a clip of it on Twitter here:

twitter.com/Otto_English/status/1125510841875533826

As others have said, a very experienced broadcaster, I think he's unwell and probably should be at home in bed instead of being up late at night spouting shit about something that is of very little real journalistic importance.

Yy I reckon he was being screamed at to not go there

I thought maybe a creepy crawlie had found its way up his trouser leg and he lost his train of thought.

From that twitter clip looks like He's getting some right crap confusing stuff from control thats what it does look like, don't think he was having a stroke evert!.

I think he's unwell and probably should be at home in bed instead of being up late at night spouting shit about something that is of very little real journalistic importance.

Being a royal correspondent places give journalistic importance on this for NW.

*places huge

He looks like he was feeling a bit under the weather.

What did you think he was going to say, Water?

‘They’re calling him Gary Blue!’
‘She gave birth in a diamond birthing pool of unicorns’ tears to the sound of whale song!’
‘They’re having the placenta on toast!’

He was blinking an awful lot. Don't know if that's relevant.

I've also thought for some time that he's been looking very thin and pale.

I thought he seemed a bit odd earlier in the day when he was commenting in the studio - he seemed a bit bitter and cross about the fact that the baby had been born and journos weren't told until several hours afterwards - I was thinking 'get over it, why does it matter' .
He looked very tired on that clip though - I imagine after a day of continuous repetitive news and futile speculation one runs out of coherent comments.

Just watched the twitter link. Definitely looked like he was being screamed at not to go there, he got confused/misheard and repeated the same thing and they said “ok just hand back to studio”

I can’t believe Nicholas witchell is only 65. I remember watching him on the 6 o clock news when I was 5, and my dad used to have it on. I really thought he’d be in his late 70’s or early 80’s now

From the clip, it looks like someone is saying something in his ear piece and distracting him. Maybe telling him to hurry up? So he hands back to the studio.