Coverage of the Lee Rigby killing

Journalism Matters JNC00124 March 2014

Did the media show the video because the public deserved to know, or because they wanted to grab audience share?

• It provided a platform to inspire more terrorism• It was too violent and shocking• It was screened when children could see it• It was shown partly to gain audience share/boost

newspaper sales• It was illegal – contempt of court – harmed

chances of a fair trial• It left traditional journalism trying to catch up

with a new world of smartphones and viral videos

What was wrong with the coverage?

Sun managing editor Richard Caseby:“This was very graphic and disturbingcontent … Would it only serve as propaganda, feeding further outrages? These are difficult moral dilemmas played out against …• tight deadlines• intense competition and a • desire to be respectful to the dead and their

loved ones."

Sun managing editor Richard Caseby:“This was very graphic and disturbingcontent … Would it only serve as propaganda, feeding further outrages?

Royal Barnes laughs as he passes hundreds of flower tributes left for Fusilier Rigby in Woolwich in one of the three videos the man posted shortly after the soldier's death

Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor

“This was an extraordinary, perhaps unprecedented, event. In broad daylight on a British street a man was hacked to death allegedly by someone who then essentially gave a press conference, using Islamist justifications.”

Sun managing editor Richard Caseby:“This was very graphic and disturbingcontent … Would it only serve as propaganda, feeding further outrages? These are difficult moral dilemmas played out against …• tight deadlines• intense competition and a • desire to be respectful to the dead and their

loved ones."

No chance of a fair trial?

Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor

“It was, by any standards, a unique news picture – but in a new media context in which the killer's message had already been distributed around the world virtually in real time.”

In the era of cameraphones and social media, is there any need for journalists?

How the video spread through the news eco-system

Sunder Katwala, New Statesman

But …

“The fact that everything is available somewhere on the internet does not absolve editors. There is plenty of stuff out there on extremist jihadi websites that does not get put on TV.”

Where does this leave journalism?Can only certain people be journalists (a profession)?Or can anyone do journalism (an activity open to all)?

What can professional journalists add?• Find information• Provide context• Provide balance• Select• Check/verify• Publish to wide audiences

But …

Ordinary members of the public can do all these things, if they have the right skills and attitudes.

What was right with the coverage?

• A major international story of legitimate public interest – so overrides some ethical and regulatory problems

• Killer’s justification helped audience to understand motivation

• Public needs to understand level of violence• Some broadcasters cut confession and most grisly

footage• Most broadcasters gave a warning• Audiences already knew what to expect

What judgments did editors have to make about the video footage?

Dilemmas

• To screen or not to screen?• When to screen?• How to edit?• To pay or not to pay?• How to compete with ‘amateur’ viral news?

References• Allan, Stuart, News Culture, ch 10: Citizen journalism in times of crisis, pp218-29, 239-44.• Banks, David, ‘Woolwich attack footage will stir debate over contempt laws‘, Guardian 24 May 2013 [

http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2013/may/24/woolwich-attack-footage-contempt-laws]• Elliott, Chris, ‘The readers' editor on… the Guardian's coverage of the Woolwich murder’, Guardian, 26 May 2013 • Frost, Chris. Journalism Ethics and Regulation. Harlow; New York: Longman/Pearson, 2011, pp167-174• Halliday, Josh, ‘Woolwich attack: ITV removes content from suspect's video 'confession', Guardian, 24 May 2013

[http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/may/24/woolwich-attack-itv-michael-adebolajo-confession]• Hollander, Gavriel, “

Sun and ITV Defend ‘Public Interest’ in Showing Woolwich Terror Video Sky Judged Too ‘Distressing,’” Press Gazette, May 24, 2013.

• Katwala, Sunder. ‘After Woolwich: how the media got it wrong and how the public can get it right’, New Statesman 23 May, 2013

• Knight, Megan, and Clare Cook. Social Media for Journalists: Principles and Practice. SAGE, 2013, 112-13, ‘Breaking news and the accidental journalist’, 113-14, ‘Active citizens and active sources’, 118-119, ‘User-generated content and audience-sourced news material’, 119-20, ‘The forms of user-generated content’, 160-161, ‘What is a journalist?’, ‘Bloggers vs journalists’.

• Ofcom, ‘Broadcast news coverage of the Woolwich incident on 22 May 2013’, Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin, Issue number 245 6 January 2014 [http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/enforcement/broadcast-bulletins/245/obb245.pdf], pp22-25, pp37-51

• Sabbagh, Dan, ‘After the Woolwich attack the media must continue to aim for openness’, Guardian 2 June 2013 [http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2013/jun/02/woolwich-attack-media-openness]