I've thought a lot about the BBC and Sky Mews reports from the channel. Its bad journalism plain and simple.

I don't think the crews are I'll intention, but they do look out of their depth. I might be wrong, but I don't think I've seen any of them covering humanitarian or migration stories before. If they have that's even worse because they should know better.

They way they reported the story was reckless, coming so close to an overcrowded boat at speed on the water is dangerous. Getting as close as they did get get a boom mic on them is insane. The boat could have capsized, lives could have been lost.

In the Sky report you can here the migrants say "no camera", they don't want to be filmed. Anyone who has reported on people fleeing repressive regimes knows why: the regime can carry out recriminations against loved ones in the country they fled.

But this was a live broadcast. The reporter could not, and did not even try, to get consent before filming. Just sailed straight up to people fleeing god knows what and broadcast their faces on international TV. No respect and very very dangerous.

The feel of the reports was that journalists than until now only got to cover more mundane domestic issues got a chance to roleplay as foreign correspondents. The optics stank and it felt oportunistic.

But there's an editorial problem here too: who's signing this off? At an editorial level where are the conversations about the right and wrong way to tell this story? Is this sensationalist? Is this populist? And crucially is this the *safe* way to tell the story?

I've covered migration stories for years. This is not how you do it. You have no idea who the person is in that boat and no idea what they've left behind and what they've run away from. Sensitivity and caution need to be demonstrated to approach ther stories correctly.

And: safety safety safety. People's lives are at risk at sea. When I reported this story in the Mediterranean we had rescue divers, multilingual translators to tell migrants on the boats to stay calm, not to stand up and unsteady the boats that are often poorly made.

Teams of journalists did not rock up in their own boat and start gathering stories. We teamed up with NGOs, with search and rescue operations both military and civilian. We worked alongside trained professionals and listened to them on how to tell the story safely.

I don't know if the journalists ships had some of those precautions and professionals on board but it didn't look like they did. What I do know is if they carry on reporting the story in this way then lives will be put at risk.

Honestly, you write a thread about good reporting practice and misspell news in the first tweet...