The story is wrapped up in secret intelligence … leading to a suspicion that the truth is being hidden. ibid.
‘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
DUNBLANE MASSACRE: see HAMILTON, THOMAS
DUNCAN, JOSEPH: People Magazine Investigates TV - True Crime Recaps 2022 -
Groene family: Blood on the walls and on the floor … Three deceased individuals … victims of an extremely violent attack …. multiple bludgeoned injuries … People Magazine Investigates s6e1: Groene Family Massacre, rozzer, CI 2022
The police officer said that the two younger children were missing. ibid. relative
Is this a kidnapping for ransom or a kidnapping for something else? ibid.
If this man walks out the [restaurant] with Shasta she might never be seen again … As soon as law enforcement arrives they immediately recognise Shasta … Police identify the man as Joseph Duncan. ibid.
Duncan is currently a fugitive on a molestation charge out of Minnesota. ibid.
Joseph Duncan is a name that should send shivers down your spine. He was a man with no conscience, no empathy and an insatiable appetite for children’s tears. He’s one of the most evil serial killers in history. True Crime Recaps: Boise Child Chiller: Evil Incarnate, Youtube 13.42, 2022
By the age of 16 he’d already abused and tortured 13 little boys … He criss-crossed the country molesting dozens more and slaughtering 7 … This was a monster. ibid.
DUNKLEY, THOMAS: A Killer’s Mistake TV -
Shaun Cummins would lose the last fight of his life. Murdered by someone who was meant to be his cornerman. The hunt for a murderer soon focussed on Thomas Dunkley. A Killer’s Mistake s2e7: Thomas Dunkley, DiscoveryPlus 2023
After becoming paralysed, Cummins had won £400,000 in compensation, money put away into a trust fund for his care and his day to day living. ibid.
He [Dunkley] went the bank for Shaun, managed his finances. ibid.
‘A community nurse got suspicious about what was happening inside the house.’ ibid. reporter
His death had been a violent one. ibid. commentary
DUNLOP, BILLY: Real Crime TV - GazetteLive online - Catching Britain’s Killers: The Crimes that Changed Us TV - In the Footsteps of Killers TV - Britain's Most Evil Killers TV -
This woman has battled for 13 years to get justice for her murdered daughter [Julie Hogg]. She knows who the murderer is: this man [Billy Dunlop] who persuaded the courts to acquit him. Then, when it was legally safe, boasted he was the killer all along. Real Crime [with Mark Austin] s2e2: Justice for Julie, ITV 2002
The police soon had a prime suspect: Billy Dunlop who was lodging two streets from Julie’s house … In May 1991 Billy Dunlop went on trial in Newcastle for Julie Hogg’s murder … Julie’s housekeys were discovered under Dunlop’s floorboards and had his fingerprints on them, semen on the blanket around Julie’s body could have been his. ibid.
She’d had many lovers and her private life was splashed across the newspapers. ibid.
Dunlop had sex with Julie once in her home a month before she was murdered. This allowed him to explain away his fingerprints on her keys and his possible DNA on the blanket around the body. ibid.
The judge ordered a retrial. ibid.
Dunlop was formally acquitted of murdering Julie Hogg. ibid.
For almost 17 years, Billy Dunlop thought he had got away with murder.
And had it not been for his victim’s mum and her incredible battle to change the double jeopardy law, the evil killer could still be walking our streets.
Pizza delivery girl Julie Hogg was just 22 and a mum to three-year-old Kevin when she was killed in November 1989.
Her disappearance was initially treated as a missing person inquiry.
But 80 days later, Ann found her daughter’s decomposing and partially mutilated body behind a bath panel in the young mum’s Billingham home. GazetteLive online article 28th November 2013, ‘Crimes that Shook Teeside: Double Jeopardy Killer Billy Dunlop’
A murderer who walked free, inspiring one other to challenge an 800-year-old law. Her campaign would bring killers to justice who had until then been getting away with murder. Catching Britain’s Killers: The Crimes that Changed Us II
Double Jeopardy: Julie Hogg: a forensic team went in to search Julie’s house … ‘Screaming: she’s under the bath!’ … The police began looking at Julie’s private life … ‘All the evidence started to point to one of these men as the prime suspect: and that man was Billy Dunlop. ibid.
In 1991, over a year since Julie’s body was found, Billy Dunlop stood trial for murder in Newcastle’s Crown Court … They had failed to reach a unanimous decision and couldn’t come to a majority verdict either. The judge discharged them and ordered a retrial … A new jury heard the defence call all the evidence into question once more. ibid.