View all newsletters
Sign up for our free email newsletters

Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

  1. Archive content
August 4, 2005updated 22 Nov 2022 4:21pm

Post gets tornado pictures

By Press Gazette

By Sarah Lagan

The Birmingham Post claims to be the only newspaper to have captured
a photograph of the devastating tornado that hit the city last week.

Photographer Neil Pugh was on his day off and driving home when he saw a “black and green mass of clouds”

above
the trees. He pulled over and grabbed his camera from the boot of his
car. The Post devoted its front page to Pugh’s picture and filled nine
pages with reports and eyewitness accounts.

Post sub-editor Jo
Travis was lucky to escape injury when a tree fell onto her car,
missing her by inches. She looked back at her house to see her kitchen
roof had caved in and the floor and kitchen tiles had been reduced to
rubble.

In a story published in the Post, she said: “I felt numb.
I didn’t know where to go and I felt very vulnerable. Mine was the
worst-hit home in the street.

“I thought the window [of the car] was going to come in. Then a branch hit the driver’s side and did smash
the window. A tree had fallen on my car and dented the roof.”

Content from our partners
MHP Group's 30 To Watch awards for young journalists open for entries
How PA Media is helping newspapers make the digital transition
Publishing on the open web is broken, how generative AI could help fix it

Sister
paper the Evening Mail had to delay its final edition when news of the
tornado broke at about 2.30pm. It turned the story around in half an
hour with the help of photographer Darren Quinton, who was covering a
separate story for the Sunday Mercury and offered the Mail his
pictures. The Mail got the story on the front page.

Deputy editor
Colin Clark said: “The fact that the Mercury offered us its pictures
shows how we can all work together when a big story breaks.”

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

Select and enter your email address Weekly insight into the big strategic issues affecting the future of the news industry. Essential reading for media leaders every Thursday. Your morning brew of news about the world of news from Press Gazette and elsewhere in the media. Sent at around 10am UK time. Our weekly does of strategic insight about the future of news media aimed at US readers. A fortnightly update from the front-line of news and advertising. Aimed at marketers and those involved in the advertising industry.
  • Business owner/co-owner
  • CEO
  • COO
  • CFO
  • CTO
  • Chairperson
  • Non-Exec Director
  • Other C-Suite
  • Managing Director
  • President/Partner
  • Senior Executive/SVP or Corporate VP or equivalent
  • Director or equivalent
  • Group or Senior Manager
  • Head of Department/Function
  • Manager
  • Non-manager
  • Retired
  • Other
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
Thank you

Thanks for subscribing.

Websites in our network