Press Coverage Of London Riots

The London Riots was covered throughout all newspapers, on new websites and on news shows. The riots started on the 6th August 2011 right through to the 10th August 2011. Youths and teenagers were constantly scrutinised and blamed for all of the violence and the papers especially focused on this group - however we know it was not all teenagers involved.

WIKIPEDIA:
Following a peaceful march on 6 August 2011 in relation to the police response to the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police Service firearms officers on 4 August 2011, a riot began in Tottenham, North London. In the following days, rioting spread to several London boroughs and districts and eventually to some other areas of England, with the most severe disturbances outside London occurring in Bristol and cities in the Midlands and North West of England. Related localised outbreaks also occurred in many smaller towns and cities in England.

The Sun Newspaper had very contriversial and bold headlines when these riots we going on. I feel that this is definately a strong tabloid to analyse as headlines such as "RIOTERS AGED 7", "ANARCHY", and "MEET THE ACCUSED". The photos used along with the headlines are very vivid and you can clearly see, without even reading anything but the headlines, that the newspaper is refferring to young people and youths.



With loads of around the clock news channels being aired on TV, the riots were constantly a talking point throughout the shows. Any footage that was filmed by onlookers, rioters themselves and TV crews were obtained and anaylsed thoroghly 24/7. The fact is it seems that all opinions and views were extremely biased and from a clip found on Petes Media Blog, you can see what reporters were trying to do when the other opinions were put forward.
As you can see the newsrepoter did not want to let the man speak his mind on why young people were committing these crimes. As soon as he accused the police of always suspecting young black people, she cut him out. You could easily argue that they wanted to make sure talks revolved around the fact that young people were comitting these crimes and not how it had been building up over the years and it wasnt there fault.




Obviously there are many other news pieces that represent the riots and young people in similar ways. Strong front pages such as The Daily Mirror also immediately show that it was teenagers comitting these crimes. There are loads of sources on Youtube with interviews from a variety of News Channels.