Tragic Death Of TV News Reporter

The BBC announced this morning, the death of TV news reporter, Pontificator Speculation in a tragic news reporting-related accident.

Speculation was well-known to BBC news viewers as that bloke who stood outside most of the famous buildings in the UK and around the world, in order to repeat – almost word for word - what the newsreader in the studio had just said, while nodding back to the obviously closed and empty building behind him to indicate that whatever was happening, or could happen in the future was - most definitely - not happening at that moment, before handing back to the studio where the newsreader repeated everything Pontificator Speculation had just said, because the viewers couldn’t hear Pontificator Speculation over the noisy background sounds from where he was reporting from.

According to the BBC, Speculation was about to do a piece live to camera from a riverside town suffering from the usual British summer floods as the river was about to burst its banks due to a freakish storm that was devastating the surrounding area. The police had warned everyone not directly involved in shoring up the river banks to keep away from the vicinity of the storm.

Consequently, and typically, Pontificator Speculation was the first reporter on the scene, ready to report live on-air as the gale howled around him and the rain poured down, thus making anything he was likely to say – repeating what the newsreader had just said from the dry warm studio – totally unintelligible to the viewers.

However, in order to get as close to the action as possible, Pontificator Speculation had stood just where a lorry was backing up to tip out its full load of sand ready to be used to fill the sandbags the workers were hastily piling up against the already overflowing riverbanks.

Much to the surprise of the BBC, not a single worker there noticed the reporter as he was buried alive in damp sand, still spouting his platitudes and inanities about the blatantly obvious bad weather. Furthermore, both his soundman and cameraman both also claimed to have not noticed – until it was too late – that what they were pointing their camera and microphone at, was no longer a TV news reporter, but a ten-foot high pyramid of increasingly wet sand, with both claiming they couldn’t see or hear a thing through the raging storm. Although reports that they had set up the camera and boom microphone and then quickly dashed off for a cup of tea, have been strongly denied by both the cameraman’s and the soundman’s union reps.

Pontificator Speculation was 32 and winner of the prestigious Most Pointless News Report of the Year award seven years running. He may well be missed by someone, somewhere… perhaps.