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Quotes of the week - Riots, Scottish Media, BBC

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

August 13, 2011 | 5 min read

Social media gets blamed for riots in London, Manchester and Birmingham, there are calls for a new organisation to unite struggling Scots media and the BBC hits back at more Salford flak.

"There has been an awful lot of hysteria about how social media may or may not have been used to incite these riots and organise them... I don’t see how shutting it down can do any good. You’ll not only disenfranchise young people, arguably, more; you’ll cut off any chance to organise a community clean up effort and you’ll shut off any chance you might have to find out who’s behind it."

Media lawyer Steve Kuncewicz tells The Drum that temporarily shutting down social networks in the wake of the riots in England, as David Cameron has mooted, would do more harm than good.

"Lot of debate about publishing details - courts very clear, justice should be done publicly."

Greater Manchester Police explains why it has decided to name and shame on its Twitter feed all those caught playing a part in the riots.

"Follow @gmpolice right now - best Twitter feed of the year."

Piers Morgan was certainly impressed by Greater Manchester Police's show of justice.

"It's a matter of principle for us, we don't just hand over our rushes [raw footage] to the police without them going through a proper process which is via the courts. It doesn't really matter what the nature of the offences are – if we went down that road of making judgments of the nature of the offences, that would compromise our editorial standards."

The BBC's head of newsgathering, Fran Unsworth, explains why the corporation will not be handing over its riot footage to police.

"Analysis of media coverage and queries raised on Twitter have alerted us to the possibility that we may have inadvertently given misleading information to journalists when responding to very early media queries following the shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police Service officers on the evening of August 4."

The Independent Police Complaints Commission admits it may have given reporters misleading information in the early stages of the investigation into the death of Mark Duggan, which sparked the riots in London last weekend.

"This campaign embodies that and galvanises people in a common good cause which will put Manchester back on the map for all the right reasons."

Glen Barkworth, general manager at the Manchester Arndale shopping centre, launches an 'I Love MCR' campaign in response to the riots.

"We feel for those impacted by this weekend’s riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can. As in all markets around the world where BlackBerry is available, we cooperate with local telecommunications operators, law enforcement and regulatory officials."

Patrick Spence, managing director of global sales and regional marketing at RIM, the company that makes the Blackberry, says it will help police with their investigations after reports claimed rioters had organised themselves using the Blackberry Messenger service.

"Scottish media, newspapers, radio, advertising, is now in steep decline. One organisation needs to be formed to represent Scotland’s media as a whole to create a cohesive approach to Government.”

Tim Blott, the regional managing director of Newsquest (Herald & Times) calls on Scotland’s media and creative industry to unite to form one representational body.

"BBC North will always have its naysayers, but the move remains on time and on budget. The article perpetuates the myth that the project is costing £877m and that 'scores of staff' have not moved. The reality is very different."

Peter Salmon, the director of BBC North, hits back at the Mail on Sunday after the paper once again published a highly critical article of the corporation's move to Salford.

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