The first edition of Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe (BBC4, 25th March 2009) featured an interesting segment on the knock-on effects of news coverage. Tackling the subject of voyeuristic rolling news coverage, it asked if news broadcasters have responsibilities to the  impressionable rubberneckers it draws in. Alongside the example of the recent school shooting in Germany, forensic psychiatrist Dr Park Dietz detailed his frustrating attempts to advise news networks on How Not To Propagate More Mass Murders:

On Friday 27th I was reminded of this interesting segment by this, this and this. London’s papers have been gearing up for a weekend of riots, and as police officers have their leave cancelled, journalists may have reason to sympathise with them. The London media seems to have convinced itself that rioting is inevitable, and there will no doubt be countless reporters on standby to cover all the violence which may or may not occur.

Amid all the speculation the main protest’s organisers, Put People First, are claiming there is no evidence to suggest their demonstration will be anything but peaceful. The words of the TUC’s Brendan Barber, who will address the rally, sound moderate compared to the language of this week’s speculative reportage.

Why then is the predicted violence so hotly-anticipated? With their doomy headlines and handy guides for any rubberneckers after a piece of the action, are London’s papers encouraging it? Their coverage has focused on  fears of what may happen, rather than actual police intelligence, so could their speculation be as irresponsible as the news coverage condemned by Dr Dietz?

Such an accusation may be unfair: while much of the coverage seems a tad hysterical (the G20 must surely be the first summit to be described as a spectacular), fears of a 2009 Summer of Rage were first raised by senior police. While these fears are based partly on intelligence reports, there has been a worrying amount of speculation drawing on the events of the past, some of which may even be in the intelligence reports themselves. Responding with a heavy-handed approach may only serve to increase resentment- or in the words of Professor Chris Knight: “The message to police is ‘if you press your nuclear button, I’ll press mine’. It sounds like a threat? Well, yeah – don’t do it. If you want violence, you’ll get it.”

Who does want violence? The police? The media? The rubberneckers? Or just a tiny minority? The rest of us can only hope that the predicted violence never materialises, and if it does, that we will know who deserves the blame.