Some stories timber down the track in months, announcing their approach with bells, whistles and a final ear-bride fanfare: the Olympic Games in 2012 is a case. Other displays come out of nowhere, catch all — or nearly all — by surprise, with devastating consequences. Mark Duggan, 29, died on Wednesday 4 August at Tottenham Hale in North-East London, in the hands of a police firearms specialist, is in the second category.
He is not the first person to be shot by police during arrest. And his death was not even power lines news in two days. A group including his fiancée and community workers, went to Tottenham police station on Friday 6 August, to try to find out more about what had happened. Later that night, youths tried to break through police lines to get to the police station.
The unrest in the area, Tottenham scattered across the country and over guardian pages of its site and throughout last week. Journalists fought in extremely hazardous circumstances to get as many and as accurate witness reports as possible into the guardian in print and online. I think in general they have achieved a very high standard of accuracy and fairness of the four nights of riots (although we should have made clearer, before that they were English riots rather than UK-wide).
However, and probably inevitable in such a highly charged situation, where language is a problem in itself, has been criticised the guardian for some aspects of its reporting. Terminology is crucial, and one lapse from the Guardian style guide arose when the term Afro-Caribbean was used instead for African Caribbean.
Any description of the make-up of the groups on the streets – a crucial for Justice in reporting and understand what was happening in fact exercise — was fraught with difficulties. A report in Monday's paper of the scenes in Tottenham and the surrounding area contained these statements in a 1,800 word report: "make-up of the rioters were racially mixed. Most were men or boys, some apparently as young as 10. But families and other local bebøre, including some from Tottenhams Hasidic Jewish community, also gathered to watch and jeer at the police. "
More than a dozen e-mails were received by the readers editor's office, including one from the Executive Director of the Board of deputies of British Jews. The complaint was that we had unfairly singled out one ethnic group, the Hasidic Jewish community.
In consultation with Paul Lewis, a reporter, who covered rioting in London and other cities, was the phrase extended within 24 hours to give details of the other groups on the streets at night. Report's did not attempt to blame the riots on the Hasidic community. He was on the scene and try to make it clear that representatives of part of the multicultural society in the region – Hasidic Jews – were on the streets. He tries to paint a picture of what was the streets like at this point. He was careful not to say that he saw members of the Hasidic community unrest, which he did not. From the Guardian coverage by Mark Duggan death as a whole, it was clear that many of them in the crowd were from a multicultural background. But read in isolation, the original story did not make clear enough – and we're sorry.
Online social networks played an important role – different reasons — to journalists and rioters. But the quantity of reports can be confusing. Paul Lewis, who had after riots every one of the four days and nights, so an event on the evening of Tuesday 9 August in Enfield, where a small group of white men chased at least one black man through the streets. He heard men yell that they wanted to get "black" and "pack ice" and tweeted this event as part of his coverage.
However, there were other peaceful groups of white males and other multicultural groups on the streets the night guarding the properties, and they could not see what Lewis saw. The incidents were confused. A complainant to guardian trøde report's deliberately stirring problems. I have talked with the reporter and he was with a colleague, who confirms his account for the first event. The guardian also has some reader video films that support their eye-witness accounts. But the speed of Twitter and anger by them on the street have made this difficult to disentangle.
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