The BBC Breakfast star, 42, was asked about his proudest moments of his career and recalled the weight of being tasked with presenting coverage on the darkest news stories. “I’m not sure pride is the right word, but I think when the Manchester bomb went off,” Dan Walker told The Mirror. “That was one of those strange mornings where we both got a phone call from our boss in the middle of the night, which is very rare. He rang us and said, ‘Right, something massive has happened in Manchester,’” he continued.
Dan said their boss had decided that Louise Minchin, 50, would be reporting from the scene at Manchester Arena after the bombing at an Ariana Grande concert killed the attacker and 22 audience members.
“I can quite vividly remember this, I’m sat in the studio, and I was on my own on the red sofa, and everything changes those days,” the BBC Breakfast host explained.
“Auto-cues, scripts go out the window, you’re just reacting to everything that’s happening.
“I think on that day we had nearly treble our normal audience.”
Louise, meanwhile, said they were “conscious” that the incident was “a horrific thing”.
“I would’ve been there, but for my daughter, who was doing GCSEs at the time. She wanted to go to that concert,” she told the publication.
“You want to get it [the coverage] right and be respectful.
“I’m really conscious that there were young children waking up to see that, so you’ve got to do it in a way which is factually correct,” she added
“I feel a real connection with the audience.”
On a lighter note, Dan also said getting 82-year-old Tony Foulds the flypast memorial to honour the servicemen who died in an air crash 75 years ago was one of his proudest moments.
He called the event “the best thing Breakfast has done”.
Dan has fronted the BBC morning news programme alongside Louise since 2016.
Yesterday, he reignited his lighthearted spat with Good Morning Britain’s Piers Morgan, 53, when the presenter shared Dan’s quotes about their programme going in a different direction to the ITV show, “without shoving anything in anyone’s face”.
The BBC Breakfast star also said: “I don’t think we’re, ‘Ha ha,look at us,’ ever about it, we feel privileged and thankful to be in that position where people trust us in the morning.”
Piers uploaded a picture of the article in view of his 6.5 million Twitter followers, saying: “[Crying with laughter emojis] Says the guy who literally posts charts every time I remind him we’re closing the breakfast TV ratings gap faster than he puts his halo on in the morning.”
Dan proceeded to call Piers “desperate”, posting in view of his own 557,000 followers: “I do love a desperate bid for a retweet. I think we are due a new sofa in 2025 [crying with laughter emojis].”
BBC Breakfast airs weekdays at 6am on BBC One.