Australian journalist Natasha Exelby who is reporting overseas. Picture: Supplied

The former Channel 10 reporter and Wake Up! co-host was reporting live from the Bastille Day tragedy for Turkish state broadcaster, TRT World when military took control of the news studio’s Istanbul control room and cut the feed dead.

“They [studio staff] couldn’t say anything because they just had the military come in and take over and take their phones. We just went to black and didn’t know what had happened,” Exelby told News Corp Australia.

“We thought it was a tech problem but got word that all staff had been evacuated and we really didn’t know what that meant. I’m travelling with a Turkish producer who knows the protocols and she figured if they’d evacuated the state broadcaster then there’s a coup on the go.”

With the Syrian war on its doorstop and ISIL cells being discovered within Turkey almost on a daily basis, this latest upheaval has not come as a shock to the TRT World anchor and foreign correspondent.

Despite claims the coup has been contained by the ruling Erdogan government, Exelby has now been redeployed to London where the TV network would hope to continue broadcasting again from a safe distance.

Growing political tensions have made media, and especially TRT World journalists, the target of ISIL fighters within Turkey.

“Because we are the national broadcaster and the President Erdogan has come out against ISIL we are a direct target. I’ve been in situations, in hotel lobbys where I’ve been in the same lift as ISIL members then they’ve been later arrested because they have shot dead other journalists.”

Exelby first travelled to Istanbul for a holiday in 2014, but says “it’s different now. Even if you’re at rooftop bars, you feel like a bit of a sitting duck. To go into work each day, you go through a similar screening process to what you do at an airport. There is a military presence everywhere.”

TRT World’s two bureaus in Ankara and Istanbul remain closed, with staff advised to stay home and off the streets.

Reuters reports 42 people have been killed in the Turkish coup attempt, with PM Erdogan declaring a no-fly zone over Ankara and blaming the unrest on the Gulen movement, led by Turkish imam Fethullah Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the US since 1999.

Exelby was circumspect about what may come next for the country.

“To be honest, I’m taking each hour as it comes,” Exelby said. “Last night I went to bed with the news of 84 people being killed thinking that was the biggest story in the world right now. Then a few hours later, I’m live on air and there’s a bigger story. I don’t think there’s too much that could shock me right now…I’m not planning too far into the future.”