[Jon]

I don’t understand the outrage, TV presenters and personalities get access to things that they’re reporting on all the time that the general public would have significantly worse access to. It’s like complaining that Gary Lineker has access to a box at the FA Cup final every year, whilst fans that pay to get in have to sit in the stands with potentially worse views.

Those complaining might also be surprised they’d have had less chance of meeting the Queen when she actually alive too, than celebrities.

[eyeTV]

And the eventual summary of their experience was ultimately less moving and insightful than the hundreds of regular people on the news who'd already given their own anyway.

Doesn't really matter what anyone thought of the segment or if it was worth doing. They were there in a media capacity, which formed into a report that aired on This Morning, sharing their experience and talking to other mourners.

[ginnyfan]

The whole ''filming'' thing sounds like an excuse for them to queue jump. They should have owned up to it and apologized.

[gottago]

I actually think that ITV and the producers at This Morning are at fault for this for thinking the whole segment was appropriate in the first place. I feel for Holly and Phil because it's not like they have a choice when the programme/producer is asking them to film a piece for a future show. It comes with a string of failings and poor decision making at ITV and This Morning over the last few weeks/months so if I'm honest all of the hate directed at Holly and Phil is definitely not justified when the decision to film the segment wasn't theirs to make.

I'm not convinced it was the show's idea to be honest. If it was they'd have surely organised an actual camera and sound to film two of their highest profile presenters on what would surely be the highlight of the entire package? Instead the whole thing was filmed on what looks like a phone by someone barely able to keep three people in frame. None of their interviews feel particularly produced by whoever was behind the camera either.

I believed their explanation until I saw the package. The whole thing reeks of Holly and Phil getting wind of press passes, promising to do the bare minimum to justify it for the show and then misjudging how the public would feel about it. The show's then had to come out to try and organise some damage control for their most important talent, as well as broadcast some pretty sub-standard mobile phone footage to help with that.

And by the way I'm not especially bothered by all this, but I think BS should be called out when it likely is BS. I also don't think this is necessarily just faux-Twitter outrage, my mum's certainly not a social media user but is very much in their target audience, and she sees this as yet another example of the rich getting an advantage over the poor in the public sphere.

[Steve in Pudsey]

I did like Adam Hills' take on it on The Last Leg

“There’s apparently a sub-set of people out there who adore the Royal Family but don’t like it when rich, privileged people get special treatment."

[XIII]

To me, other presenters have done a lot worse and came out unscathed. What Holly and Phil have done is really relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. The way people are going, you'd think they'd stolen the Crown Jewels.

[Kim Wexler’s Ponytail]

And the eventual summary of their experience was ultimately less moving and insightful than the hundreds of regular people on the news who'd already given their own anyway.

Doesn't really matter what anyone thought of the segment or if it was worth doing. They were there in a media capacity, which formed into a report that aired on This Morning, sharing their experience and talking to other mourners.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should, that's all people are saying. In the end the shoddy output they got from them being there in a ''media capacity'' wasn't even worth it. Interviewing the people you were queuing with would surely have resulted in a better report?

I don’t understand the outrage, TV presenters and personalities get access to things that they’re reporting on all the time that the general public would have significantly worse access to.

Well yeah. Have you ever watched the show? If this had been anyone else they'd have been all over it in the 'This Morning View' segment.

[Jon]

I’m sure they would’ve, and I wouldn’t agree with that either in a situation such as this.

The irony is of course, had they not used the media access, someone else would have likely missed out on getting in or got in later.

I fully imagine there was a discussion along the lines of ‘is there a way we can use a media pass to get in?’ and then they decided to create some content that justified that. But that was their right as members of the press and I’m sure hundreds others did it. But whilst I can understand why people who waited for 12 hours would be annoyed, I don’t believe they did anything the majority of those people wouldn’t have done given the opportunity.

I’m sure at the very least it was their intention to talk about the trip on their show and how it felt for them. Of course the reaction there has been, made that much more difficult.

[Larry the Loafer]

People's anger generally depends on whether they actually like the person, I think. So I'd say this is more of a catalyst for people who already had low opinions of them, especially coming so soon after mocking people who thought it was inappropriate to give away a prize that consisted of your energy bills being paid for a few months. (I forget who posted this and where it was posted, but somebody asked how it differs to other "pay your bills" competitions, and to that I say, during a cost of living crisis, better support is needed across the board than a slim chance of winning a phone-in competition, and the general optics of two wealthy TV stars giving away a lifeline rather than a luxury prize is just uncomfortable.)

[Keith]

I suspect it probably didn't help Phil & Holly that only a day or two earlier David Beckham had been seen waiting in the public queue, which gained quite a lot of media attention.

Chances are the filming probably was a flimsy pretext for being able to use a media pass to skip the public queue. However, it wouldn't surprise me if some of those writing tabloid articles criticising them did exactly the same thing themselves. There were probably also several other high profile 'celebrities' that were able to skip the queue, but managed to avoid the negative public reaction (so far).