London Protests – Media Misrepresentation Helps No-one
Providing accurate coverage of any protest event, especially an
event where there is violence, is difficult at the best of
times; the media often misunderstand or misrepresent what
actually happened. However, it is rare that the media coverage
of an event is as inaccurate or misleading as some of the
reports I have seen concerning the violence at the student
protest in London yesterday. Much of what has been written and
broadcast about yesterday’s incidents does not stand up to the
facts. Without naming and shaming individual media groups, the
most glaring errors have been:  “There was widespread rioting
throughout London” – Whilst there was intense violence at times,
almost all of it occurred within a small area of Parliament
Square. Although there were up to 30,000 students at the
protest, only approximately 500 were directly involved in the
violence. The location of the violence within the square moved
as this group moved to different locations.  Outs