Reporting the Riots

Four days of rioting and looting in London, Birmingham, Manchester and other major towns and cities was a testing time not only for the police and the courts but also for the news media.

Blanket coverage on television news channels was blamed by some for inciting continuing unrest and copy-cat crimes.  Widespread use of messaging services and social networking sites raised worrying speculation about the extent of state surveillance of mobile phones and the internet. 

Tabloid newspapers leapt at the chance to promote a tough law-and-order clampdown. Unprecedented exploitation of images captured on closed circuit television helped the police make hundred of arrests. Again the popular press were cheer leaders, publishing their own “rogues’ galleries” of potential suspects.

Nicholas Jones chairs a discussion aimed at examining the many issues involved.

He talks to a broadcaster, photographer and journalist with wide experience of the difficulties of reporting civil unrest: Alex Pascall, presenter of the radio programme Black Londoners and a well respected voice of the Caribbean community, Jess Hurd, chair of the London photographers’ branch of the National Union of Journalists, and Tim Gopsill, former editor of The Journalist who has written extensively on the way the media report protests and demonstrations.