Reporter Branded An 'Idiot' For Telling Boy Who Escaped Burning Tower Block That 'Missing School Is A Plus Side'

A TV news reporter was criticised today for joking with a boy made homeless by the Grenfell Tower fire that he wouldn't have to go to school.

Sky News correspondent Mark White was slammed on Twitter after making the joke during an interview with grandmother Ruks Manudu, who fled the burning building with her grandson.

Mr White spoke to Ms Manudu about how she woke at 1am to discover fire engines outside the building and woke her grandson to get out. But a comment Mr White made at the end of the interview caused anger online after he asked the boy: 'So no school for you today? It has a plus side I guess.'

Mr White was reporting from a rescue shelter in west London where residents of the tower block who had escaped the inferno were being looked after.


One Twitter user wrote: 'How can the reporter on sky news say to that young boy "at least you don't have to go to school", no time for jokes??'

Another added: 'The newscaster on Sky News interviewing a Grandmother and her Grandson is an idiot.
"Bright side is no school for you!"'

Another tweeted: 'Idiot on Sky News interviewing evacuees and said to a kid "no school for you today I guess, eh?"'

But other users of the social network said Mr White may just have been trying to lift the boy's spirits and shouldn't be criticised too harshly.