`WE MAY HAVE TO LOSE THE QUEEN MUM'

The Prime Minister has said News at Ten scenes of this treasured institution

IT IS six minutes to ten on a Friday evening and a group of journalists is sitting in a small, dark room on the Grays Inn Road watching televisions. That is not a completely accurate description. Only a minority is actually watching televisions. Most are shouting at them. And some of the televisions, believe it or not, are shout- ing back.

`Show me the out. It's too tight to take,' someone shouts at a gracefully ageing black man, who looks in at us from one of the 40-odd television screens. He seems to understand what they're saying, removes the handkerchief from his forehead, the Diet Coke from his lips, shouts something equally incomprehensible to an invisible companion, and the camera in front of him gives us what I assume to be the 'out'. It becomes clear that he, this black man, otherwise known as Trevor McDonald, is standing in front of the White House. He's in Washington, worrying about the heat and the forecast for rain. In London's ITN control room there is a technician worrying about his sound, another about his 'out', another about his timing.

The director of the programme, Jane Thompson, turns her attention to a differ- ent screen. Jim Courier, having beaten Becker that day and earned himself a place in the Wimbledon final, is telling a journal- ist at the press conference that followed to `keep [his] mouth shu-', and the team at ITN are wondering whether it is Courier's pronunciation or their editing which is responsible for the lack of a sounding 't'.

Julia Somerville, meanwhile, who called in this evening to read the news for Trevor while he interviews Clinton, is worrying about her hair.

`Three minutes to transmission,' a thin girl with a flat voice tells her microphone. Nobody seems to listen.

They're doing something with the light- ing on Somerville's face. She is sitting at Trevor's desk, gazing a little vacuously at one of the television screens which show her — and us — her darkened roots.

`I have got to do something with my hair,' she's saying. (On 'the screen beside her, in the pre-recorded McDonald/Clin- ton interview, the President is discussing Bosnia . . . ). 'It's sort of Gloria Hunni- ford. I can't bear it. I should either get it cut or go into purdah.'

`Ya. Agreed,' says Elias, the pro- gramme's editor. But perhaps he isn't lis- tening. 'We're horrendously over. We've got to drop 4a. 4a is cut. We don't need 4a underlay and it looks like we may have to lose the poor old Queen Mum.' Out goes the Queen Mum. Out goes the date for the first South African multiracial elections.

The show is meant to be opened by Trevor on the lawn in Washington. He's nodding, inside his television screen. It's not raining and — . . Three, two, one,' says the thin girl with the flat voice. 'On air. Bongs are recorded. Forty seconds.'

Trevor's still nodding, but the screen is coming out in stripes. 'There's something funny happening on US. Julia, be prepared to take over.' She nods, roots forgotten now. (She, like Trevor, has some sort of receiver hidden in one of her ears.) And the show, still 35 seconds too long, has begun.

A9.30 that morning, adrenalin was running only slightly lower. A handful of middle-aged men in suits — let's say 12 of them — was sitting around a dreary office table discussing how they would tackle the day's Events. This was the first News at Ten meeting of the morning and my intro- duction to these people's extraordinary secret (and inelegant) language.

They were discussing the Asil Nadir affair. Already, they had sent their trans- mitter van to Putney to pick up what turned out to be a ludicrously pointless interview with the ludicrously pointless David Mellor about a phoney letter alleged to have been sent by the ex-minis- ter for fun to Mr Nadir.

How, the men in suits wondered, could they explain the very complicated fraud/ Inland Revenue/Nadir (and Mellor) story without getting lost or losing their viewers along the way?

`Clearly there's a whole plate of spaghet- ti here to be untangled,' David Mannion, editor of all Channel Three news pro- grammes, pointed out. 'We've got to sign- post people through this one a bit.' Various suggestions were made. And the table moved on to Bosnia.

`There's a feeling we ought to broaden it out dip. corr. wise,' said Elias. 'It looks like we're at an end-of-game scenario in terms of Muslim resistance,' said Mannion. So, depending on what their reporter in Bosnia came back with (and, it turned out, on what McDonald managed to get out of President Clinton), a Bosnia report would either be allowed into the first or second half of the programme.

But the highlight of tonight's show would, of course, be the Trevor McDonald `exclusive' with President Clinton. This evening's would be the first British televi- sion interview Clinton had granted. News at Ten planned to turn it into a 'Special'. Hence the satellite to-and-fro with McDonald. Hence his anchoring the pro- grammes from the White House lawn.

But the team discovered this morning that the interview would not after all be quite so exclusive as they had imagined. McDonald was being allowed only three questions and they would have to be asked in the presence of other international jour- nalists. The White House was willing to let News at Ten 'cheat it' a bit, however, and make it seem as though Clinton and McDonald were alone.

There were two stories in Liverpool that needed to be covered, one about an EEC grant, another about a pregnant woman's murder. There was a report about breast- feeding helping to prevent cancer. (It made the One O'clock News, at least: `Yeah, bosoms. Loads of bosoms, plenty of bosoms,' I heard two of the suited men telling each other in the corridor later.) There was the Sams kidnapping case: 'He sobbed in the dock,' said Elias, 'which is nice.' There was the story about News at Ten itself (how flattering), the San Fran- cisco shooting, the Bottomley/schizophre- nia story, the wretched Mellor's wretched letter. 'It's a bit of a potboiler, that one,' said Mannion. 'I still think it's a fascinat- ing sort of what's-going-on story.'

Meanwhile in the newsroom, which looks — apart from the vast number of television screens hanging from the ceiling and resting on every desk — exactly like any newspaper office, a journalist was throwing a tantrum. 'Well, you know,' she was saying, if you want my piece to go `This game's far more fun when you have ships to hide...' without a script then — fine.' People strode past her, but nobody (except me) stopped to stare.

The News at Ten studio is separated from the newsroom by only a curtain. It, like all studios, is far smaller and scrappier than it appears on screen.

'We had a bit of a problem the other day,' said the director. 'A reporter came bursting in while we were on air. We heard bangs and crashes from the control room, and wondered what the hell was going on. The reporter was angry because his pack- age had been dropped. But the newsroom's usually fairly empty by ten o'clock.'

At the 6.10 meeting, producers appeared to have only a slightly clearer idea of what stories would make it than they'd had that morning. There were two disappointments. First, Trevor had only been allowed two `exclusive' questions with Clinton. The one about our special relationship had had to be dropped. Second, the report back from Bosnia wasn't up to scratch.

`They haven't come across any fighting. There's a couple of deserted villages. But we won't see lots of whizz-bang in this one,' Elias explained to his boss.

`Are you bothered,' shouted a young pro- ducer from the opposite end of the room, `that the Pope's gone into hospital again ? He's not dead.' Nobody replied.

The US satellite has come good. Trevor has delivered his 'welcome' without a hitch. We have reached the second half and the programme is still running 35 seconds over when a report comes in of a boat in trou- ble. It has 150 people on board and News at Ten needs another ten seconds to fit it in.

`You never know,' explains the young producer sitting beside me, it could be another Zeebrugge.'

That tantalising prospect means they need to cut 45 seconds while the pro- gramme is still on air. The director is shouting code language to numerous screens, Elias is bent over Somerville's script.

`We've got to cut the fourth paragraph.' Nobody pays any attention. 'No. You've got to do this now. Cut the next paragraph. Take out the next paragraph.' Julia Somerville's expressionless face reads on. She takes a breath.

`Cut the next paragraph.'

She cuts it. Without a blink. Reads on. The director shouts at Trevor, tells him he's going to have to cut short his good- byes. He nods, a million miles away. She shouts at the producer of the Courier `package' to give her the short version - 'We're getting reports of a boat . . .' says Julia Somerville. McDonald says a quick farewell and — they've done it. They lean back.

`You'll be pleased to hear,' says Elias, `that the boat has been brought to safety.' And, finally, they laugh.