číslo 1/2013 - Paneurópska vysoká škola

Výskum & Eseje/Research & Essays 19
We also made a conscious choice not to label the people we were reporting on, even though our sources
mentioned vigilantes, ethnic groups and political groups. Given the already heightened situation I felt it would
be irresponsible to put out sensitive information we couldn’t directly check ourselves, so we stuck to just
reporting movements of people. I think our readers appreciated that; our coverage was seen as being purely
factual without any speculation, and therefore more valuable than other sources. I refused to report rumours
about intended targets, which I think reassured a lot of people. (Corfield cited in McAthy, 2011).
Rather tellingly, fluidly dispatched, on-the-spot reportage mediated within the familiar strictures of impartial
reporting was being prized over and above the forms of ‘second-hand’, near-instant ‘armchair’ analyses
otherwise proliferating across the webscape. Erratic, unsubstantiated assertions, frequently given greater
credence simply by sheer repetition (and thereby posing the risk of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies), disentangled
when challenged by ‘citizen witnessing’ (Allan, 2013a) conscientiously informed by personal knowledge
and experience of local neighbourhoods.
As the violence waned, media commentaries recurrently highlighted differing perceptions of the reasons
behind the civil unrest. ‘While the television broadcast images of burned buildings and cars, Tottenham’s
new citizen journalists captured the full extent of the damage, reaching the corners that the press couldn’t’,
one blogger, Reni Eddo-Lodge (2011), observed. Writing as someone who had grown up there, however,
she expressed her sadness that it had taken a riot to highlight the complex problems blighting one of the
most deprived areas in London. The restoration of public order tended to be narrowly defined around social
control measures, with Prime Minister David Cameron’s declared ‘fightback’ strategy, permitting police to
employ harsher tactics, being widely praised in news reports for finally quelling what was being called ‘the
biggest explosion of urban rebellion in a generation’. In the end, 5 deaths were attributed to the rioting, with
at least 16 people left injured in its wake. Over 3,000 people were arrested, about one-third of whom were
formally charged, with most offences concerning theft or property damage to vehicles, homes and shops (the
Association of British Insurers estimating the cost to the insurance industry to be in excess of £200 million).
It would take some time, though, before sensational headlines denouncing street gangs for perpetrating the
riots were exposed as inaccurate. Too many press reports had elected to characterise the events as evidence
of anarchy, or, in Cameron’s words, ‘mindless selfishness’ motivated entirely by ‘criminality pure and simple’
to wreak havoc. ‘Images of burning buildings, cars aflame and stripped-out shops may provide spectacular
fodder for a restless media, ever hungry for new stories and fresh groups to demonise’, Nina Power (2011)
observed at the time, ‘but we will understand nothing of these events if we ignore the history and the context
in which they occur.’
Gradually, more informed reporting began to emerge, with in-depth examinations of the underlying
structural divisions and hierarchies prevailing in young people’s lives receiving some, albeit limited, treatment.
Criticisms of the coverage were sharply polarised, typically corresponding to divergent views over
whether the rioting was to be condemned outright, or to be regarded as understandable, even justifiable,
given wider social factors. Few could dispute, however, that official assertions about the necessity of ‘fiscal
austerity measures’, ‘budgetary efficiencies’, ‘belt-tightening’ and the like were rarely aligned with the deprivation
of those confronted with the harsh realities of economic hardship, unemployment and impoverishment
of life-chances on the streets of inner-city communities. For many of those denigrated for belonging
GMJ Book.indb 19 21.1.2013 9:44