Hugh Whitfeld has been Seven’s UK bureau chief for eight years, but it’s fair to say he hasn’t had a start to any year like 2022.
This week sees him reporting for duty in Birmingham, site of the 2022 Commonwealth Games which launch later this week. The two-week posting comes in a year where his duties have ranged from covering the British Royal Family to the destruction and death caused by Russia during its invasion of Ukraine.
After arriving to take on the UK and Europe role when the Seven bureau was relaunched in 2014, Whitfeld has been there ever since.
“I am fortunate that my posting here has been extended several times,” Whitfeld told Mediaweek inside the Seven Commonwealth Games HQ at the International Broadcast Centre just outside Birmingham at the NEC complex.
“When I first arrived in London I was by myself working as a VJ. Seven has steadily grown the bureau over the last eight years and we now also have Sarah Greenhalgh and our cameraman Jimmy Cannon. Before that we had Laurel Irving and Cath Turner.
“Everyone has played a part in how we have grown the Seven London bureau. This year our resources were really pushed what happened in Ukraine, but we have been backed up really well by others coming in. Subsequently we have been able to produce an extraordinary amount of content from various parts of the world.”
Above: Hugh Whitfeld in Ukraine. Top: Whitfeld with his camera operator Jimmy Cannon.
Ukraine invasion
Whitfeld: “When the invasion happened it coincided with the Queen being diagnosed with Covid. Chris Reason was here to cover the Queen and concerns about her health. We adjusted our plans and Chris managed to get into Ukraine and later Sarah spent five weeks there and Geoff Parry also came over from Perth.”
Whitfeld also spent time covering the war and he noted Seven had people in the country from early January until mid-May this year. “Seven put in the investment to make sure that story was told.”
Whitfeld explained Seven’s reporters in Ukraine worked as a part of a team of five. They were joined by a camera operator, a local driver, a producer/fixer and a security person. “That is a pretty standard set-up for a serious news organisation on the ground in Ukraine.”
Journalists enter the country on the western border with Poland where Whitfeld noted the Ukraine bureaucracy continues to operate.
Many media were based in Lviv said Whitfeld, noting that Reason and then other Seven reporters also reported from Kyiv.
“We arrived in Kyiv when the Russians were still very close, in Irpin. About 10 days after we arrived there was when Putin said he was going to pull out of the north and focus on the east. Sure enough, over the next three days that Russian presence evaporated.
“We visited some of the towns the Russians had left after the Ukrainians had cleared the ground. You’d look around and think, ‘What on earth has gone on here. None of this makes any sense.’
“Borodyanka was probably a very good example of stories we were being told how the Russians were even blowing up towns they held because they wanted to punish the population.
“We have had far more access to the victims than the perpetrators. We were hearing from families who had lost loved ones or who had been held hostage in their own homes. You can’t not be moved by that.
“Many people might forget that for the most part Ukraine is a very ‘western’ country. For the last 20 years they have been looking to the west as opposed to the east.”
Working the red carpet in London
Hugh Whitfeld’s Birmingham 2022 duties
Whitfeld will be working the Commonwealth Games for Seven as the lead news reporter. “My job each day will be to bring together the key moment our audience will want to see in the news.
“I’m expecting, as are many of us, that we will be showered in gold. I’m looking forward to the battle between England and Australia where there will be key rivalries in the pool, at the cricket, hockey, and rugby 7s. The gold count might go up by dozens a day,” Whitfeld anticipated.
Although Whitfeld and his colleagues from Seven are working for a week in and around Birmingham before the Opening Ceremony, he noted that once the Games are underway they will be driven largely by the daily results.
“The time zone isn’t super friendly, but it’s not unfriendly to the viewers either with many events screening primetime in Australia.”
Whitfeld in Birmingham with Seven’s planning manager Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Dacien Hadland
Working with a support team of reporters, camera operators and producers from Australia is a luxury for Whitfeld, he explained. “I am so used to working so much by myself as there is usually just three of us working out of the UK. We will have a news chief of staff and a senior news producer in Birmingham.”
Covering a major sporting event when the network has broadcast rights is obviously an advantage, Whitfeld explained.
He has been both the reporter on the inside with access and the correspondent who has to cover proceedings from outside of the venue. He used Wimbledon as an example of an event where Seven has and hasn’t had the rights during his years in London.
“In Birmingham we will have access to the venues and we will be able to talk to the athletes first. That is so valuable. I covered the FIFA World Cup in Russia where we didn’t have the rights. You can tell a good story from the outside, but it’s not the same thing.”
Future news stories
Looking forward to major stories later in 2022, Whitfeld mentioned the World Cup in Qatar and he noted there is always plenty to report on about the activities of the Royal Family.
“There will also be a new British Prime Minister in the first week of September which will keep us busy. It will be fascinating to watch and it won’t be a smooth ride for whoever it is. British politics has been very rocky for most of the past six to seven years.”
But continuous headline news about Boris Johnson and his successors might be big news in the UK, it doesn’t necessarily fascinate an Australian audience. “One of the key parts of the job is to identify what will be newsworthy for an Australian audience. To pick through the stories and provide some sort of helicopter view for the audience.”
Commonwealth Games: Countdown to Birmingham 2022
Mediaweek On Location
Tuesday: Hugh Whitfeld in Birmingham
Wednesday: Inside the IBC with Seven’s Dacien Hadland