By Reuters Communications
Last week, Reuters was the only news agency to capture footage of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson taking part in the ‘Clap for Carers’ event—proving even more timely for customers when Johnson announced his coronavirus diagnosis the following morning.
Reuters photojournalist Hannah McKay was on the scene at Number 10 Downing Street following a tip that Johnson would take part in the event, and with no time to send a separate video crew, jumped into action to capture footage along with pictures.
“I suggested to an RVN producer that I could shoot the event on my second camera, having had a tripod with me because I was moving on to shoot something else with the tripod after,” said McKay. “With five minutes to spare, he arranged for a cameraman to call me to run through the correct settings I needed and then before I knew it, I was pressing record on the camera seconds before Boris Johnson appeared on the doorstep. …It’s rare to be able to shoot video and stills at the same time for an event like that.”
“The news broke the next morning that the Prime Minister had tested positive for Coronavirus, so the footage and stills had more value than we had realised because it was the last sighting of him. That made being there for both even more important.”
Follow the latest on Reuters coverage of coronavirus here .
[Reuters PR Blog Post]
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Heather Carpenter
heather.carpenter @thomsonreuters.com