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Editor reflects on how paper covered horrific killings

A daily editor has told how his team broke a major news story on the night of their staff Christmas party.

In a first person piece in the Leicester Mercury acting editor Richard Bettsworth revealed how the newspaper covered the story of sacked policeman Toby Day, who apparently attacked his wife and three children before taking his own life in the family’s home in Melton Mowbray on 8 December.

Two of the children survived the attack but his wife and youngest child died.

An inquest into their deaths was opened and adjourned on 12 December.

In his piece, Richard explained to readers that he was at the Mercury Christmas party when the story broke. He had missed a call from his chief sub-editor Matt Sulley who had received ‘an extraordinarily accurate tip-off about the terrible events in Melton.’

He then told what had happened by deputy news editor Alison Martin, and got back to the office at 8.30pm.

Wrote Richard: “The deadline for the last page of the newspaper is 10pm and at this stage we had no information at all – nothing other than the tip-off.

“I negotiated an extension to the print time to push it back by half-an-hour and, at the same time, the team who would break the story began to gather in the office.

“They were reporters Alan Thompson and Tom Mack and crime reporter Ciaran Fagan, who knew Toby Day well.

“Leicestershire police put out what was effectively a holding statement, saying simply that there had been an incident in Melton and that it had been “contained” but adding no information about the nature of what had happened.

“At the same time, Alan, Tom and Ciaran were ringing everybody they knew.

“Even so, at 9.30pm we still had nothing of any substance, with an hour to go until our extended deadline.

“That meant an hour left to not only compile a meaningful and accurate story but also to design the front page.

“Then, the information started to come together in a rush.

“The police released a new statement which confirmed that a man, woman and child, had died in the incident and that two other children had been injured.

“However, there were no names and few other details.

“At the same time, the reporting team had managed to contact other sources who gave us the missing information.

“As soon as we realised that the man involved was police officer Toby Day, we were also able to source a photograph of him from our archive.”

Richard added that the reporters pieced together a very comprehensive story and gathered a lot more information than any other news organisation.

He continued: “It was clear that we were going to be able to pull together a very strong front page.

“Then it was down to the sub-editors, Matt Sulley and Simon Petryszyn, to design the new front page and re-work pages two and three.

“Matt came up with a simple and suitably sombre front page with the headline on a black background. Sports deputy editor Tim Murray, who was also in the office, proof-read the pages as they worked.

“The front page was sent with about two minutes to go before the new 10.30pm deadline.”

Richard added that as he drove home afterwards, the enormity of what had happened hit him and was a sobering moment after the rush of the previous two hours.

His article can be read in full here.

 

 

 

13 comments

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  • December 21, 2011 at 9:50 am
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    I read this expecting stabbings at a journalists’ xmas party. Now that would have been a story. New headline please……………

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  • December 21, 2011 at 9:56 am
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    @ Human Resource – well personally I quite enjoyed reading that. Thought it was a nice reminder of what proper journalists can and do achieve, while receiving little or no credit from those who lazily assume that we just sneak around telling lies about celebrities and attempting to destroy the lives of innocent people.

    Also a good reminder of what can be done when there are enough dedicated, trained reporting staff available – something which our highly paid, cost-cutting media execs would recognise, if they had a brain cell between them.

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  • December 21, 2011 at 9:56 am
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    No.once again journalists underline their professionalism and dedication to the cause by dropping everything to get the job done despite continually being undermined by company bosses. Good to see some dunkirk spirit in our profession.

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  • December 21, 2011 at 11:10 am
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    I prefered the Melton Times coverage.

    Much less sensationalist and more human I thought. Maybe they know Melton Better than some leicester paper does.

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  • December 21, 2011 at 12:21 pm
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    Hi Melton Man, the Times came out more than a week after the event. I’d suggest they had no choice but to go down the route they did because by then the central story had been told. Ciaran at the Leicester Mercury.

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  • December 21, 2011 at 12:44 pm
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    Fine work. Something for the directors and sales managers to consider as they all set off on their holidays, not to return until January.

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  • December 21, 2011 at 1:10 pm
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    Sad admission – “I negotiated an extension to the print time”. What about when daily papers were just that, with editions being updated on the run. The plane crash at Kegworth, Lockerbie, Dunblane, Hungerford and big news stories on every patch. It was the job of papers, now it seems a subject for backslapping.
    Well done to the Mercury team, but having to negotiate an extension to the print time shows, to me at least, that the people running papers don’t understand about papers, or what readers want, but simply the numbers on an account sheet. No vision, ambition or ideas, just what is in front of them.

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  • December 21, 2011 at 1:33 pm
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    I’m surprised the print deadline is 10pm. Oh dear.

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  • December 21, 2011 at 2:53 pm
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    Sounds like a great team effort. Well done all involved.

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  • December 21, 2011 at 3:29 pm
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    And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin’ to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell the beancounters that they may take our jobs, but they’ll never take… OUR FREEDOM (to experience a rare adrenalin rush from the job we yearn to do on starved papers with crap wages and stupid hours).

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  • December 23, 2011 at 3:41 pm
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    Great effort. All the team deserve a slap on the back for their work. Well done to Richard Bettsworth.

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