Multimedia reporting of a tragedy

Tuesday 10th August was unremarkable. A normal day at the office in a month that is traditionally quiet, although we’d had South Wales Police doing a press conference as they hunted another suspect in the Aamir Siddiqi murder case.

That all changed around 7 PM when the police helicopter was hovering above my flat. I thought it might have something to do with the hunt for Siddiqi suspect and the sound was deafening so I went to have a look and I thought I’d reflect into what turned out to be an evening full of reporting.

Approaching the Fitzhammon Embankment there were groups of people looking at the River Taff. There was some police presence and search boats going up and down. “What’s going on?” I asked a group of Asian lads. “There’s a body in the river mate!” they said. I personally couldn’t see the body. I made my way to the police cordon, flashed my press card but couldn’t find out anything more from them.

A quick call to newsdesk and late reporter Simon Gaskell was on his way to the scene. I quickly grabbed quotes from by-standers and neighbours about what they’d seen and been told by the Police. I also started snapping some photos of the scene in general, the police cordon tape, the search boats. I joined Gaskell on the bridge overlooking the Taff and we discussed what we knew so far – there was a body, police had shut down the area. We had our suspicions over who it could be as a young lad had disappeared the previous week while walking home from a night out. (Note: The day after the incident we had it confirmed it was unfortunately the body of 19-year-old Bryn Warren)

South Wales Police press office weren’t confirming anything at that stage and officers at the scene were less than helpful. We had some hassle over taking photos, an officer approached us and asked us to stop. We politely declined, stating public interest but he continued to ask us to stop. We said he could only stop us taking photos if it was suspected terrorist activity and he backed off.

While we were at the scene, I’d been tweeting a photo or two and basic information from what we knew. There was bound to be lots of interest as the River Taff flows directly through the centre of Cardiff and many people would be going past the area at that time. Looking back through the stats on our bit.ly account, our stats showed over a fifth of all traffic generated to the story was through social media and there were lots of re-tweets of the information we were sending. This helped establish yourCardiff as a feed for breaking news and information. It also shows your audience is instant and you have to be accurate.

We nipped back to the office and filed basic copy online. The photos weren’t brilliant and we couldn’t get a photographer down to the river. I returned to the scene with my N95 camera and using a local contact I’d built up through my community reporting I was able to access a house just opposite the cordon to get a stronger image of the green screen the Police had setup around the area.

Image taken on N95 from contacts window showing green screen area put up by Police

Finally to give the story an extra edge and to dispel some myths that were flying around Twitter, we added a google map of the area and added key places and photos to it to illustrate what was happening. The map below was viewed over 4,000 times in 24 hours, it’s really simple to do, took minutes and added an extra element to the story online.

View River Taff/Fitzhamon Embankment incident area in a larger map

We also included a link to the only official announcement we had at that time from the Police, a tweet from their helicopter about being on the scene at 7.30 PM.

It was a difficult evening of reporting. Balancing ethical issues with the pressure to get breaking news online, pushing police for identity while trying to get the best story we could.

What’s your experience of reporting breaking news and using multimedia tools? What kit do you use? Have you had problems with the police about taking photos of the incident/scene? Let me know in the comments below

Be Sociable, Share!

•