Event: Shootings Debrief

On 2 June 2010, Derrick Bird, a 52-year-old taxi driver based in Whitehaven, shot and killed 12 people, including his twin brother, and injured a further 11.

The shooting spree across West Cumbria began in the early hours of the morning and ended just after 1pm in the afternoon when he shot and killed himself.

Just over a month later, on Saturday 3 July 2010, Raoul Moat, a former nightclub doorman from Tyneside who'd just been released from Durham prison, shot his former girlfriend and shot and killed her new boyfriend. A day later, Moat shot and seriously injured a police officer, PC David Rathband.

Moat was on the run for nearly a week, before being tracked down on Friday 9 July in the village of Rothbury in Northumberland. For several hours, there was a stand-off with armed police. Moat was holding a shotgun to his head. In the early hours of Saturday 10 July, he shot himself; he died just after 3am. 

In both cases the world's media descended and huge challenges and questions were posed. The BBC College of Journalism held a debrief for BBC staff at BBC Newcastle, to discuss these issues and talk about the lessons learnt from covering the two stories.

Several points emerged in the discussion, without really reaching any clear conclusions or answers. So it's probably worth highlighting these and opening them up for a wider debate.

The issues were: the security of staff; the relationship between journalists and the police; the relationship between the national and local media and people living in the communities; and how to cover a story when it is being played out live on TV, radio and online.

For nearly a week, an armed man was on the run. He was known to have a grudge against the police. It emerged later that he may well have also had one against the media. Hundreds of journalists, photographers, camera crew, producers and engineers were, by the very nature of the story, close to where he was likely to be. So what precautions were needed? The BBC had security, but should these employees, like staff in war zones, have been made to wear flak jackets and helmets? Would this have been an over-reaction or simply appropriate protection?

The relationship between the police and the media is never going to be easy in situations like this. The need for information is unrelenting, both in terms of feeding the news beast and keeping the public informed of exactly what is happening, where it's safe to go and where people should avoid. Could the police and the media have worked better?

The relationship between the local media and the community, and the national media and the community, is obviously very different. While the main networks, national newspapers and agencies are unlikely to be returning to Whitehaven in the very near future, this is not the case for Radio Cumbria and Look North. So, when the local community is asking the press and media to leave them alone, how should they react?

There has been a great deal of debate about the way in which Moat's death was played out live across the media.

His brother Angus was highly critical:

"I think I'm probably the only person in the country who has watched their brother die on television, which is obviously horrific ...

It's happening behind glass and you're not there. It's all hotting up; you've got this constant round-the-clock news; it's like the whipping up to what could be a public execution in modern Britain of my little brother."

Was it a public execution? Was the media proportionate?

As I say, many questions and much debate.