Newsround Host Shares Why She Holds Nintendo Switch Controllers On Air: "It's a Bit Odd!"

HAVE you ever watched Newsround with your kids and wondered why the presenters hold Nintendo Switch controllers?

Well, Emma-Louise Amanshia – one of the of the programme for children – has finally revealed the reason, but also admitted it’s somewhat “weird”.

Emma-Louise Amanshia – one of the hosts on BBC show Newsround – has revealed why the presenters hold Nintendo Switch controllersCredit: tiktok/emmalouiseam Emma-Louise added that the controllers are visible at the weekends, when she most often fronts the programmeCredit: tiktok/emmalouiseam She also acknowledged that it’s a bit of a “weird” way to control the autocueCredit: tiktok/ZNRPmubca

She was responding to someone who had asked her: “Why did you have a Nintendo controller in your hand on Newsround?”

And in a video on her TikTok page , Emma-Louise said: “Sometimes people ask why we hold a controller on the Newsround, which is such a fair question because it is weird!”

“And basically we use this to control the words.”

She then demonstrated how it works, as she showed the autocue machine in front of her.

“So like I’ll be sat here on the sofa and there’s a script in front of me and then this is literally what I use to go up and down, this little jog wheel.”

The controller also has “buttons to go back to the beginning”.

As Emma-Louise concluded: “Someone who’s smarter than me has made this work like a remote control, so we use it for that!”

“Well you told us what it does, but why a Switch controller?” one person wrote in the comments section.

To which another person replied: “You can use any controller, it’s just Bluetooth and you can just connect them to your PC.”

“Not that hard to do, just connect it to a program, then make it register the joystick axis both the + and – then it work with a bit more code,” someone else said.

While others insisted they hadn’t noticed Emma-Louise using the controller at work.

“I’ve never seen you use that,” one person wrote.

To which Emma-Louise replied: “Do you ever watch at the weekends?”

And there were even comments from people admitting they had no idea Newsround was still going from when they were kids.

“I haven’t seen Newsround for like 25 years,” one admitted.

“I don’t know why I’m happy to see that it’s still there!”

Someone who’s smarter than me has made this work like a remote control, so we use it for that!

Emma-Louise

“Is Newsround still around?” another marvelled.

“I used to watch it back in 2008!”

“That’s awesome. I used to watch Newsround when it was called John Craven’s Newsround,” a third laughed.

Newsround has been airing on the BBC since 4 April 1972, and was initially called John Craven’s Newsround.

It was the first programme of its kind aimed at children from the ages of five to 15, with presenters over the years including Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Helen Skelton and Ore Oduba.