It is imperative the Firm gets this moment right
September 14, 2022 8:00 am(Updated 8:34 am)
Like everything in the Firm, any announcement of a monarch’s death is precisely staged.
The plans for “Operation London Bridge” – the code name for the death of Queen Elizabeth II – were revealed in The Guardian in 2017, and since then royal commentators have been waiting for the minutiae of detail to play out. As BBC commentators slowly swapped into their black ties over the course of last Thursday afternoon, those familiar with the plans knew what was coming.
Of course, Queen Elizabeth II’s death was the first to play out in an age of digital media. This meant that any embargoes on the news were harder to maintain. BBC World News anchor Yalda Hakim tweeted around 3pm that the Queen had died, before quickly deleting it and apologising. On the lead up to the BBC announcement, the…
