Nick Witchell’s got himself in the news again today (the last time was back in March), for a pretty hilarious argument he had during a rehearsal for a radio news two-way. Unfortunately for him, the mp3 of the incident has found it’s way into the metaphorical hands of the Grauniad, and then onto their website… and from there, onto this website:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

In all honesty, though, I tend to sympathise with Mr Witchell in this case – the questions the presenter was rehearsing were generally pointless, as indeed was the whole two-way. And it probably eventually went better for having had the argument. Granted, it would probably have gone on even better if the presenter or the production crew actually had any idea about the story that was being reported, but perhaps that’s too much to ask nowadays.

But however much I think Nicolas was in the right, this will undoubtedly form another chink in his far from flawless armour – and his position is already looking increasingly dodgy, as the Beeb and others oust informed, connected, and mature correspondents in favour of inexperienced attractive young ‘faces’.

When it comes to presenting the news, I’ll take informed presenters like Jon Snow and Jeremy Paxman over autocue reading, lip-gloss wearing, automatons like Natasha Kaplinsky and Kay Burley any day. How can someone who doesn’t even know what’s been going on in the world ever possibly conduct a decent interview about it?

Updated 29th July 2006 to include audio file (replacing dead link)