{"id":1149,"date":"2011-08-09T13:22:23","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T12:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1149"},"modified":"2011-08-09T13:22:23","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T12:22:23","slug":"move-along-please-nothing-to-see-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2011\/08\/09\/move-along-please-nothing-to-see-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Move along please, nothing to see here."},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night while the country seemingly went insane with looting and rioting in London, Nottingham, Liverpool, further afield and closer to home in Birmingham, the WV11\u00c2\u00a0Facebook page<\/a> and\u00c2\u00a0Twitter feed<\/a> came alive with rumours that there was rioting and looting at Bentley Bridge, Wednesfield and further afield in Wolverhampton.<\/p>\n

We were very pleased to report this was NOT true.<\/p>\n

There was no trouble at Bentley Bridge and while there have been some reports of “minor damage” in the city centre this morning \u00e2\u20ac\u201c there is nothing obvious\u00c2\u00a0that I\u00c2\u00a0could\u00c2\u00a0see on my way to work. I am shattered we spent a large part of last night relaying police updates to our Facebook and Twitter followers \u00c2\u00a0and talking online to\u00c2\u00a0Wednesfield\u00c2\u00a0residents who could see that there was no trouble going on on their doorsteps.<\/p>\n

At times it seemed like an uphill battle when twitter searches determined there were so many people convinced the main retail park in our area was burning to the ground – even though if they’d looked out of their windows a distinct lack of smoke in the sky could have waylaid that particular rumour, but we stuck at it and eventually we stemmed the tide and finally after much effort we got the point across. The people spreading misinformation started repeating our message that there was nothing going on, directing people to the official police streams – and in some cases saying they “Feel awful and a right scare monger” when they realised they were wrong. Some residents were also going out to prove all was well and posting photos to our wall.<\/p>\n

So imagine my utter frustration when the “main stream media” of our area The Wolf radio station, who were distinctly absent last night when we trying to allay peoples fears, posted this on there facebook page this morning trying to make something out of nothing:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

James and I tried our best to stem this too and then followed it up with this news piece<\/a> – and it prompted \u00c2\u00a0the subsequent response on facebook:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I feel they didn’t quite go as far as lying but most\u00c2\u00a0definitely\u00c2\u00a0reported in such a way that anyone who wasn’t aware of the truth of the situation would have probably questioned what was going on and then they chose to ignore our calls for openess and tried and get a resident to talk to them on the phone because they said they were scared!<\/p>\n

Personally I think it was\u00c2\u00a0incredibly\u00c2\u00a0irresponsible of their radio station to report in this way.There were no problems of note in Wolverhampton last night and\u00c2\u00a0definitely\u00c2\u00a0NONE at Bentley, and I can testify to this having passed by the retail park and walked through the city this morning. Keeping people afraid and giving them a platform, inviting them to fuel the rumour mill will \u00c2\u00a0create an atmosphere of fear that could become a breeding ground for a situation to arise \u00c2\u00a0similar to those we saw in Birmingham last night – \u00c2\u00a0The media should have a\u00c2\u00a0responsibility\u00c2\u00a0to report facts not conjecture and local media more so as they are much more accessible to the local people than the national news outlets .<\/p>\n

Yes there were reports of looting and rioting in Wednesfield,\u00c2\u00a0particularly\u00c2\u00a0on Bentley Bridge last night BUT they were false and The Wolf should have taken\u00c2\u00a0responsibility\u00c2\u00a0in this instance and reported as such!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night while the country seemingly went insane with looting and rioting in London, Nottingham, Liverpool, further afield and closer to home in Birmingham, the WV11\u00c2\u00a0Facebook page and\u00c2\u00a0Twitter feed came alive with rumours that there was rioting and looting at Bentley Bridge, Wednesfield and further afield in Wolverhampton. We were very pleased to report this … Continue reading Move along please, nothing to see here.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[140,56],"tags":[400,284,402,395,393,396,391,399,398,397,394,286,401,285],"class_list":["post-1149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-work","tag-bentley-bridge","tag-hyperlocal","tag-information","tag-looting","tag-misinformation","tag-panic","tag-police","tag-radio","tag-radio-station","tag-responsibility","tag-riots","tag-wednesfield","tag-wrong","tag-wv11"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6WGy-ix","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":900,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/10\/24\/that-time-agian-4am\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":0},"title":"That time again – 4am","date":"October 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Just like back in April we were up an at 'em cameras to the ready, Just \u00a0Dave and I this time though and we hit the streets of Wednesfield:","rel":"","context":"In "4am Project"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1548,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2012\/04\/16\/4amproject-15-04-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":1},"title":"4amProject 15.04.12","date":"April 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Another 4am project photowalk - this time in Walsall. Just me and Dave again but another fun one! Previous trips out include: Wolverhampton (and how it all started)\u00a0 4th April 2010 Wednesfield\u00a017th October 2010 You can see there's a gap in 2011 because the date was the end of March\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4am Project"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":848,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/08\/04\/wv11-one-year-on\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":2},"title":"WV11 – One Year On!","date":"August 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Last year I helped set up a hyperlocal website to cover the area I live in\u00c2\u00a0 and we've just passed the first year anniversary - To celebrate we had a stall at Wednesfield Community Fayre trying to make more people aware of the site and invite community input -What do\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Opinion"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1553,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2012\/11\/25\/4amproject-25-11-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":3},"title":"4amProject 25.11.12","date":"November 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Another trip out at 4am, this time to Lichfield \u00a0- Getting there was an adventure in itself as we nearly ended up in the middle of one flooded road but thankfully Dave's driving skills (and brand new car) got us out of there only to be diverted by another -flood\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4am Project"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":275,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/12\/17\/a-thank-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":4},"title":"A thank you","date":"December 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"To the girl on the top deck of the 559 bus travelling from Wolverhampton towards Wednesfield at approximately 5:30pm last night. 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