A Royal Reporter: OV Cameron Walker

In April 2022, OV Cameron Walker (Os 08-15) began his first TV reporting role: covering the royal family for GB News. Prior to this, Cameron had been behind the camera, producing for GB News following his training at ITV News.

Cameron has kindly shared with us how, after only a few months in the role, he managed the challenge of covering the death of Her Majesty the Queen:

“I was at Luton Airport when the news flashed up on passengers’ phones. I’d dashed there from the GB News studios in an attempt to make it in time to Balmoral, where just hours earlier the Queen’s doctors had announced her health was in serious decline. I’d seen the expressions of senior royals arriving in cars at Balmoral and sensed the situation was very, very bad.

“But then it was confirmed, the Queen was dead, and one by one the faces of travellers alongside me at the airport dropped as they read the short-flash on their phones. There was silence across the airport. Everyone had somewhere to be, but everyone stood still. Suddenly, everything had changed.

“Despite the fact I’d only been covering the royal family for a few months, I immediately felt a huge sense of responsibility. Like all royal reporters, this was a story I knew I’d be covering one day, but it still felt shocking that the moment had come. That sense of shock was amplified by the fact that just a few weeks earlier I’d filed report after report on the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, which had seen the UK come together to celebrate.

“After arriving very late at my hotel in Ballater, a short drive from Balmoral, I barely slept. That big story adrenaline, which all journalists will recognise, made sleep impossible. Instead, there were many questions flying around my head and keeping me awake. Many of them were technical ones like, ‘Would the satellite link to London work?’ and, ‘How would we access pooled footage?’.

“My biggest question was how my coverage, and that of my channel, was going to compete with the established broadcasters, all of whom had decades of experience covering events like this. All other channels have been preparing for ‘Operation Lion’ (the death of a major royal) and ‘London Bridge’ (the Queen’s death) for years. It meant they had their tributes, scripts, plans and graphics in place. But as a new channel, we’d been busily trying to catch up.

“Would we be ready? But behind the scenes, our team had put plans in place which immediately swung into action: seconds after Alastair Stewart announced the Queen’s death to our TV and radio viewers, we faded the screen to black. All adverts stopped; that remained the case until after the Queen’s funeral.

“In the hours after the Queen’s death, we quickly made sure our viewers became the central thread through our coverage. During the period of national mourning, we read out thousands of viewers’ comments on air. Some even appeared via video link to share their memories of the late Queen.

“There’s no doubt that, for everybody working on the channel, this was the biggest news event we’ve covered since launching 15 months ago. We now attract 2.6 million viewers to our TV coverage every month, so everybody involved in the coverage, from the planners to the tech staff to the presenters, felt a huge weight of expectation to deliver great content on TV and radio.

“I was also lucky to be working with such experienced colleagues like Eamonn Holmes, Isabel Webster and Anne Diamond. Much of our coverage, including the funeral itself, was anchored by Alastair Stewart. He won’t thank me for saying this, but I watched Alastair on TV when I was growing up, so to receive messages praising the coverage he and I were delivering was truly humbling.

“As a young correspondent I feared I might struggle to be taken seriously. I’d worked tirelessly to study the royal family in the short time since I’d been appointed, as I knew how important it was to be aware of royal protocol. And I knew that viewers would quickly (and rightly) be on my back if I got any facts wrong, which added to the sense of nervousness I felt at times covering the story.

“It was an honour to broadcast with Alastair almost every day, because his serenity in the studio enabled me to focus on what really mattered, which was trying to present accurately the facts about what was going on to a heartbroken United Kingdom. Despite his years of experience, Alastair treated me as an equal, which gave me huge confidence as I tried to do my best in reporting on the biggest story of my life.

“Naturally, much of our work at GB News was building up to the day of the funeral. Central London was on lockdown from the early hours and it was obviously very difficult to get in or out, even with my media accreditation. In the end, I even had to sweet-talk a number of police officers and security guards to let me through barriers so I could access my media position opposite Westminster Abbey’s Great West Door. There, high up on a platform, I had the perfect view as the 2,000 funeral guests began to arrive.

“Reporters had monitors inside the symbolically named ‘QEII Centre’ to watch the funeral and GB News screened the service live to viewers. Sitting at conference tables, my fellow journalists and I frantically scribbled notes in an attempt to try to remember every detail to recall later during live reports. We all knew we were unlikely to ever be involved in an event like this again in our lives.

“I recorded my final report by concluding with a quote from the then Princess Elizabeth’s 1947 speech, telling GB News viewers, ‘She declared that her whole life, whether it be long or short, should be devoted to our service. I think many people would agree that she has done just that.’

“Then, as Her Majesty’s coffin pulled out of sight, I bowed my head. I’d done my job, and each second of it had been a privilege, which I’ll never take for granted.”

Credit: Press Gazette and GB News