‘Something’s not quite right here. So what is the truth?’ ibid. Mark’s brother
Trident: a Metropolitan police unit tasked with tackling gun crime. ibid.
Broadwater Farm Riots in 1985: ‘vicious vicious riots.’ ibid.
‘There are very few angels on Broadwater Farm … but they’re not gangstas.’ ibid. Mark’s brother
News outlets need to be held to account for their coverage of the headline-hitting English riots, a new report has argued.
Media and the Riots: A Call for Action, published on the first anniversary of the Tottenham, north London, riot which took place last August is the first report to examine the impact of the mainstream print and broadcast media’s reporting on the communities most affected.
The report, written by University of Leicester sociologist Dr Leah Bassel, reflects the views of those people who attended the Media and the Riots conference held by the Citizen Journalism Educational Trust and The-Latest.com in November.
The event brought young people and community members from riot-stricken areas face-to-face with reporters and media scholars. The report draws on views expressed by the more than 150 participants at the conference as well as the findings of current reports, journalistic reporting and research.
It recommends holding the media to account, engaging with journalists, communicating with decision-makers, promoting citizen journalism and social media and ensuring wider access to journalism.
Dr Bassel said: ‘It is hard to be balanced when speaking about media coverage of the events of August 2011. We were all exposed to images of burning buildings, masked youths and shattered shop windows that repeatedly flashed across our screens and pages, and shaped the way we understood these events and our communities.
‘There is a lot to say about what the mainstream media did wrong which this report explores in detail including how media coverage was stigmatising, too moralising, overly reliant on official sources in reporting [police shooting victim] Mark Duggan’s death, and may even have incited rioting by disinhibiting looters. What I want to insist on, though, is that when we take a closer look across different media there are opportunities as well as challenges.’
She added: ‘This is not just a report on what went wrong, but also identifies what needs to be done and who needs to do it. Media actors can be held to account and citizen journalists’ stories can be heard more widely. We need to engage better with decision makers. And of course our journalists need to be more representative of society. Let’s break the cycle of unhelpful coverage and let more voices be heard.’
Brunel University journalism professor Sarah Niblock, a conference speaker, said: ‘There was too much emphasis (in the riots news coverage) on law and order and an authoritarian stance, driven by too much reliance on official sources [there is a strong section in the report about this] and the binary notions of good versus bad and us versus them.’
John Pilger has been quoted as saying at the Rebellious Media conference last year that the language used in the news coverage of the riots by some newspapers and broadcasters was akin to ‘war reporting’, with the rioters and looters treated as the enemy.
In its introduction, the report says: ‘Conference participants were angry and dismayed by unbalanced, unhelpful media coverage of the events of August 2011. This anger began with the reporting of the initial events that triggered the mass disturbances of August 2011, ‘This was the most recent example of how the machinery of the state and the media can work together to misrepresent facts surrounding a death at the hands of the police and the profile of the victim.’
A description is given in the report about how the misreporting of Duggan’s death, fed by the police and Independent Police Complaints Commission, played out.
‘Conference participants felt that big media tended to portray the disturbances largely as a conflict between black people against white business owners and that the voices of black business people who were affected by the riots were underrepresented in the mainstream media.’
They also criticised what they perceived to be the ‘racialisation’ of the riots by mainstream media like BBC TV that gave a platform to David Starkey’s controversial negative view of white young people becoming black and getting involved in the riots.
There are lots of positive practical plans in the report for the community and journalists to improve future coverage of such disturbances. These include community rapid response to correct bad reporting and ‘contact bases’ to be sent to news media to avoid ‘the same ‘rent a quote’ individuals always being interviewed, who may not in fact speak for the community they claim to represent.’ Huffington Post article Deborah Hobson 22 October 2012
Four male Negroes in a fifty-two Chevy white colour with sawn-off shotguns. Watts area. LA92: The Riots, rozzers’ radio, National Geographic 2017
August 1965: Watts district of Los Angeles: ‘It was the most widespread, most disruptive racial violence in American history.’ ibid. news
Neither the police nor the suspect knew that a home video camera had captured the scene. ibid. Dan Rather
The incident early Sunday morning was not an isolated incident: the difference this time is we have the proof. ibid. Ramona Ripston ACLU
Like they had a little toy and wanted to see how it worked. ibid. Rodney King
Rodney King is released from custody without being charged. ibid. caption
I haven’t beaten anyone this bad in a long time. ibid. rozzer
Public forums are held throughout the city to address the issue of police brutality. ibid. caption
The jury finds Soon Ja Du guilty of voluntary manslaughter: the recommended prison sentence is 16 years. Judge Karlin reduces the sentence to community service, a small fine and no jail time. ibid.
The venue was changed to the Simi Valley, a mostly while suburb of Los Angeles where many police officers live. ibid.
Why is this tragedy happening to us? Could it be that God is punishing us? ibid. store owner
This is America! ibid. store owner
It was worse than being in Vietnam. ibid. rozzer
This is not fair! ibid. store owner
To avoid further delay, Governor Wilson orders the guards into the streets with limited ammunition. A citywide curfew is declared from dusk to dawn. ibid. captions
We all can get along. ibid. Rodney King
‘When the [Rodney King] verdict came in they felt betrayed, leaving 4,000 fires, staggering property damage, hundreds of injuries and the senseless deaths of over thirty people.’ The LA Riots: 25 Years Later, George H W Bush, History 2017
April 29 1992 marked the first day of the most destructive civil disturbance in US history. Over 16,000 crimes were committed. Police made 12,111 arrests. Over 7,000 fires were ignited. 2,116 people were injured. ibid. captions
I haven’t beaten anyone this bad in a long time. ibid. rozzer
The culmination of four decades of police brutality. ibid. Patricia Moore, Compton councilwoman
William Parker turned the LAPD into a quasi-military force as opposed to a police department that was working in conjunction with the black community. ibid. Dr Todd Boyd
The Watts riots were the signal for the beginning of the black power phase of the civil rights movement. ibid. Boyd
Merchant Charged: Teenager Shot, Killed in Dispute Over Orange Juice … Last Saturday, violence erupted again between a Korean merchant and a Black patron in South Central Los Angeles. The proprietor of a convenience market shot and killed an unarmed 15-year-old girl whom the owner says was stealing. ibid. Sentinel news report
No jail time for the killing of an African-American child. ibid. commentator
Black people are still being treated like prey in our community. ibid. Danny Bakewell
‘Hundreds of people including women and children have been killed in explosive riots across Kenya.’ Kemp on Gangs s4e4, television news, Sky 2008
In 1863 as our nation struggles through a third year of Civil War, New York erupts in civil insurrection. The deadliest riots in American history. As an angry mob faces police and federal troops, blood flows in the streets and the city teeters on the brink of revolution. The turmoil is fuelled by fiery politics and racial tension. In Search of History s1e8: The Civil War Draft Riots, History 1996
Violent protest against conscription throws New York City into chaos. ibid.
The streets of New York are often battlefields. ibid.
The problem is the city’s dependence on trade with the southern states. ibid.
For the first time the federal government will draft men into the army. It’s a controversial measure. ibid.
Strangeways: The battleground for the biggest prison riot in British history. Inside Strangeways Prison s1e4, Channel 5 2017
Inmates in 20 prisons protested in solidarity. ibid.