Reporting on the London Riots

Last week we were all shocked by the images coming out of London. Teenagers, young men and women and even children poured onto the streets to wreak havoc throughout the city. Pictures of smashed in shop windows, burning cars and buildings and police desperately trying to gain some sense of control of the rioting youth were streamed over the internet and our television screens.

I lived in London for almost three years, between 2006 and 2008, and was horrified when I heard my old neighborhood, Notting Hill, had been trashed by hundreds of rioters last Monday night. I was desperate for some news on exactly which streets and shops had been targeted but my search for information on all the major news sites gave me little to go on. As is typical for a news website, they simply gave me the basic headlines and information: Notting Hill trashed by rioters. No description of how much damage was done, which shops had been destroyed and how the people who lived and worked there were reacting.

Then, by chance, I came across this post by the Portobelloblogger who lives in Notting Hill and was walking through the suburb when the rioters attacked. The post is close to 2000 words long and gives a detailed description of everything that happened that night. The blogger traces their footsteps through the night, recounting the anxious mood that fell over the usually peaceful streets in anticipation of the rioters approach and the sad reality of the damage done once they had left.

I gained more information and insight into what happened that night from this one post then I did from the six other stories I read on official news sites. Online media does an excellent job at keeping us up to date with breaking stories and developments but when it comes to filling in the details there is often a severe lack of information. I have never followed a blog before or even viewed them as a legitimate source of information but this particular experience has forced me to consider the fact that bloggers are often writing about what they see and experience and nothing, not even a report on a major news site, can trump a primary source.