It feels odd to start a column having failed to persuade oneself that what one proposes is sensible. My problem is this: whenever I put the thoughts that follow to friends whose judgment I respect, they talk me out of my conclusion. Convinced by their counter-arguments, I banish the idea.
Then I wake up in the small hours — and the idea’s back.
It is this: that should the civil disorder we saw a week ago turn into something more chronic than the chip-pan fire we’ve just experienced, then those who shape Britain’s newspapers, television and radio ought to try — at least to try — to reach some sort of informal sector-wide consensus on a set of voluntary guidelines, necessarily imprecise, on how to report events honestly, factually and comprehensively, in ways less likely to sensationalise or amplify the drama.
On the night of Monday 8 August, with the rioting at its worst, all the rolling TV news channels backed their reports, which they kept repeating, with what appeared to be looped videotape of burning buildings.
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