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Horror at the arena


Ruth Addicott speaks to journalists who covered the Manchester Arena bombing


O


n May 22 2017, Manchester suffered the deadliest terrorist attack in the UK since the 2005 London bombings. Twenty-two people were killed and hundreds injured, many of them children, as they left a concert by Ariana


Grande at Manchester Arena. The suicide bomb attack, perpetrated by Islamist extremist


Salman Abedi, prompted a public inquiry and criticism of the emergency services, the MI5 and the media. The families said they felt ‘hounded’. One child was given


condolences on the doorstep before the official notification of the death of her mother.


It also hit home the need for more resources and reporters based outside London. Helen Pidd was northern editor of The Guardian at the time


and at home in Old Trafford when she received a call from the newsdesk. Within half an hour of the device being detonated, she was at the scene. “As soon as I reached Exchange Square and saw people sobbing, including loads of little kids wearing flashing bunny ears and Ariana Grande t-shirts, I realised something serious had happened,” she says. “I was interviewing people when


Think before doorstepping


Reset in approach ITV reporter Amy Welch says journalists went through press offices and law firms to contact families following the Southport stabbings.


22 | theJournalist She believes the landscape


has changed but that this is something journalists are still navigating. David Collins , northern


editor at The Sunday Times,


believes it simplifies the process if families have a law firm to represent them and adds there has to be a ‘really high’ public interest reason to doorstep.


suddenly armed police officers in full gear with huge guns started shouting at us to leave. They thought there might be a marauding terror attack after the bomb, as happened in Paris not long before, and the prospect suddenly felt very real.” Pidd spent most of the night outside Manchester Royal


Infirmary, talking to people who were looking for lost relatives. She stayed until 8am, slept for about two hours, then went back out. “I just couldn’t quite take in that someone would do that to a concert full of children,” she says. Looking back, Pidd says she would not approach families outside a hospital again. “I learned a lot about approaching potentially bereaved


people from Dan Hett, the brother of Martyn Hett, one of those killed. He was furious at how reporters had doorstepped his family when they didn’t know if Martyn was dead or alive, and it really stuck with me. They kept answering the door because they thought it was the police.” One newspaper that won awards for its coverage was the Manchester Evening News (MEN). Rob Irvine, then editor, was at home on the night of the attack when he received a call from the duty editor and remembers the long line of ambulances as he drove to the office. “There was a real sense of focus,” he says. “First of all, getting reporters and photographers to the right places with reporters and news editors in the office scouring the web and social media.”


He believes there has been


a ‘reset’, especially among journalists in the north.


Regional weakness Collins also says the lack of staff reporters outside London has left the coverage in some nationals looking


‘weak’, citing the Manchester Arena attack and Lucy Letby as examples. “The tabloids are better –


I’m talking about middle market broadsheets. There are national newspapers without a single staff news reporter outside London.”


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