How reporting on “Breaking News” has changed in the digital age.

At 08:50 on the morning of the 7th July 2005; 3 bombs exploded on the London Underground within 50 seconds of each other.

On that day the BBC 10 O’clock news led with two mobile phone video clips sent in by the public. The main picture on the BBC news online service was taken by a passer-by. The age of citizen journalism was established.

More than 300 emails containing an average of 3 images and about 30 video clips were sent to the yourpics@bbc.co.uk address. The iconic picture of the devastated bus at Tavistock Square was sent to the BBC within 45 minutes of the bombing and was used on the front pages of the Guardian and the Daily Mail the following day. Some mobile phone video footage was on air just 20 minutes after being received by rolling news channels.

As this tragedy happened within minutes, footage and experiences, of the immediate event, from passers-by and people involved in the attack were far more relevant, than that by reporters and told the story more accurately.

Immediate

For us the worried citizen sitting at home as this news story unravelled – we were able to keep fully up to date with rolling news being broadcasted on TV and on the online news pages.

However the BBC on that day were slow to respond. In the fear of reporting false accusations they were one of the last broadcasters to report that the incident was in fact a bomb. They were running with the story that there had been a power surge disruption within the city.

This slow response was because the BBC had only just published it’s new editorial guidelines, which stated, ”accuracy is more important than speed.”

Roger Mosey, head of BBC television news, said that the BBC would only “put on screen what we know is right – reports from our own correspondents, the official emergency service figures and information from members of the public that we’ve checked out”.

However Nick Pollard, head of Sky news, said that viewers have come to expect a more complete picture of what is going throughout the day when breaking news occurs. He says: ”We take very seriously our reputation as the place to turn to when there’s big breaking news. It’s what we’re there for. We tell viewers what we can see, what we know and what we don’t know.”

Number crunching

As many scrambled to find out the latest information, the BBC, Sky News and the Guardian websites reported a large increase in traffic. News websites accounted for 5.6% of all online traffic on 7/7/2005, up nearly 50% on the previous day.

As more and more are turning to the internet for their news fix…it becomes increasingly important that the sources are telling us everything we need to know about the event. In my opinion the BBC were too cautious on that day. Sure, the BBC are a source of trust and reliability  - but when news is breaking within seconds, we too want to be kept informed at the same speed.

The BBC have now admitted that they have rewritten the policy and guidelines since the 7/7 attack.

Head of Sky’s news service, John Ryley, has said:  ”News does not usually break cleanly. Big stories emerge in dribs and drabs, bits of information from many sources. Often conflicting and confusing … when a big story breaks we report new information, clearly attributed to its source, even if things turn out differently. It was precisely that policy that the BBC decided to adopt after the London bombings.”