A court barred local news reporters from a hearing over the so-called ‘smack this yute’ video attack, leading to a Twitter spat over copy-sharing.
The Croydon Youth Court hearing centred around an attack by a 14-year-old girl on a boy of the same age in a row over a drug deal, which was filmed on a mobile phone and subsequently watched by 2.7m people online.
Croydon Advertiser reporter Tom Matthews took to Twitter to post about being turned away from the court, despite empty seats apparently being available.
Tom claimed he was told to “wait outside” by a legal adviser and obtain copy from other journalists who had been allowed in.
Tom’s Advertiser colleague Gareth Davies later posted his own thoughts about the incident on the social media platform, adding he was “disappointed” another journalist who was in the hearing had apparently “refused” to share copy afterwards.
His posts led to a robust Twitter exchange with David Lindsell, digital news editor for Newsquest South London, the company which runs rival weekly the Croydon Guardian.
The issue between the Advertiser and the Guardian has since been resolved.
David told HTFP: “I saw Gareth’s tweets that his colleague had not been able to get into the youth court with the other reporters.
“I have sympathy as I know how difficult court staff can sometimes be around youth court.
“I tweeted him back offering to share our online copy with him which our reporter had dutifully raced to send back to us straight after the case was over.
“I don’t know if the Advertiser have used that copy from us or from anyone else who managed to get into the court but in these kinds of circumstances I agree it’s usually a good thing if journalists can work together.
“If they need any help on this kind of thing in the future I’m happy for them to get in touch, and I’m sure they will do the same if we have to ask.”
The footage of the attack, known as the ‘Smack this yute’ video, led to the girl’s arrest and she pleaded guilty to assault by beating.
The girl wept and hugged her parents as she was sentenced to eight months detention in a young offenders’ institution on Thursday morning.
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Rival papers teach their reporters to be competitive, and some people can take it a bit far. Other than that, not much has happened here and it was sorted out, if anything needed sorting out at all. Why has such a mild, mundane (boring) exchange on Twitter been elevated to something of importance? One day they will invent a wonder machine where people can actually talk to each other in real time. Then there will be fireworks….”Rival news staff in brief exchange of words on telephone contraption thingie after court misunderstanding”….and http will have the transcript from the Croydon Advertiser. Can’t wait.
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Htfp….damn you, hateful predictive text.
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Sorry am I losing the will to care? National story caused by a viral social media incident between troubled teenagers turns into a nasty “lets read the emails” between two rival local newspapers. One who had the ability to get on with the job being there early or by sorting out with the court some seating and another Croydon Advertiser reporting trying to get sympathy…..Please get a life.
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If I was Mr Lindsell I would have told Mr Davies to go do one – only slightly less politely than that. What right to moral outrage does he have when a rival newspaper rightfully says it doesn’t want to hand over copy for a big story?
I notice that even though he had to beg, borrow and steal copy from the Guardian, it didn’t stop Mr Davies putting his own byline on the story in the Advertiser.
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I am afraid I started to lose the will to live after the words ‘Twitter spat’ appeared in the intro.
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Gareth Davies is a decent reporter, but it’s starting to seem like he really, really, really fancies himself.
Still, any paper under the Geere/Wilson Axis Of Ego sphere of influence is going to be one for remorseless self-publicity.
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I hoped to ignore this but felt I should clear a few things up. I really don’t know why a few frustrated tweets has become a story on HTFP (not for the first time). This was not a “spat”. I was little bit annoyed at the time but, within a few hours, the reporter in question had emailed us to apologise, which was good of him. Now I’d like to apologise that it’s become a ‘story’, which it really isn’t. As for the poster criticising me personally: we didn’t ‘beg, borrow or steal the copy’. I wrote the story before the hearing began and, as it happens, we’re only now using Guardian’s copy in this week’s paper edition. I’ve probably come across badly in this story but so would you if someone decided to write an article based on an insignificant Twitter exchange. The actual story here is about access to youth proceedings and the barriers that are often put in the way of perfectly legal reporting.
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I think Gareth should write a blog about this and enter it in the EDF awards next year.
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Gareth, I can only repeat my view that the Croydon Guardian reporter had absolutely nothing to apologise for. It was tough luck on you if your reporter was barred from the hearing for whatever reason, and you had no right to make demands for copy being handed over. You were also wrong to start throwing your weight around on Twitter (not for the first time either).
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