While reporting live on-air on a breaking news topic, a BBC Breakfast presenter’s voice achieved a cartoonishly high pitch owing to a technological issue.
The Australian state of Victoria has withdrawn from hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2026, after having volunteered for the task last year.
The state stated that the expense of holding the event would have been too expensive, with the estimated budget allegedly triple its planned amount.
On Tuesday’s BBC Breakfast, Mike Bushell provided viewers with the most recent details on the situation before moving to journalist Shaimaa Khalil, who was live from Melbourne.
‘Good morning, our correspondent Shaimaa Khalil joins us from the state capital Melbourne to tell us more about this, good morning Shaimaa. This is a huge call to make then, isn’t it? Tell us more about what the Victoria organisers have been saying?’ he said.
Shaimaa responded: ‘Well they’ve been saying that the Commonwealth Games are going to be all cost and no benefit, and this is what the state premier basically has said…’
Her voice, however, abruptly jumped in pitch, reaching an excessively shrill level.
The journalist appeared to be unaware of the technological gaffe, as she continued: ‘Is the reason they are no longer hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2026, cancelling the contract. The Games were scheduled to cost roughly £1.5 billion. They claimed that the budget had increased and that the state could no longer…’
Despite this, her report was sadly cut short due to the accident.
Mike apologised for the disruption to the show when he returned to the BBC studio.
‘Yeah, apologies for technical problems there. This is a developing story, we’ll have more on that throughout the morning on Breakfast,’ he stated.
One person on social media compared the odd shift of Shaimaa’s voice to a famous cartoon character, writing: ‘Loving that a sound error turned the reporter’s voice into Minnie Mouse during a live report.’
Earlier this month, a story on President Joe Biden and King Charles III was interrupted by a picture of coloured bars, with the banner at the bottom of the screen humorously reading: ‘BREAKING.’
