London riots local press round-up: Trusted sites work round the clock to counter Twitter ‘lies’

Following three days and nights of rioting and looting which has spread from London to Birmingham, local and regional newspaper journalists have in many cases been working around the clock to cover events.

Newquest’s Croydon Guardian, has a series of timelines, videos, and live coverage from Croydon on its website as events unfold, as have sister papers the Enfield Independent and Haringey Independent with a dedicated London Riots 2011 section. The Croydon Advertiser has also been providing live updates throughout the night and early this morning.

Holdthefrontpage reports that the Enfield Independent set up a 24-hour newsdesk on Sunday morning.

And it quotes Croydon Guardian assistant editor Matthew Knowles who noted the important role local newspapers have played in putting right misinformation carried on social networking website Twitter.

“The interesting line was the huge amount of misinformation on Twitter. Some just blatant lies. We checked out as many as we could but the majority were nonsense.

‘We proved to become a trusted source of news by only running lines that we had got firmed up or had witnessed ourselves despite temptation to run any breaking news we found. It proves that newspapers and professional journalism are essential to society.

‘Having said that many members of the public took exceptional risks to send us video footage, photos and their stories from across Croydon which we used to paint the scene of horror as it unfolded and we are grateful for all our readers.”

The Hendon and Finchley Times, Barnet and Potters Bar Times, Edgware and Mill Hill Times covered the violent clashes between angry youths and police with live updates and video links.

Trinity Mirror Southern’s Ealing Gazette is covering the riots with PA feeds, videos and pictures from both members of the public and reporters.

In Birmingham, the Express and Star provides an online picture gallery of the chaos in Birmingham, and Trinity Group’s Birmingham Post and Mail also has a slideshow showing the disruption in Birmingham City Centre.