This Just In: Rolling UK News Thread

and then went for suicide by cop as their way out

Doesn't seem like much planning went into this.

As these things go, this whole thing was kind of very low on ambition and hence had every chance of going entirely to plan, which it seemingly did apart from their assumed attempt at entry into martyrdom.

I guess meticulousness is part of the aesthetic we associate with people that do things like this. But I guess the randomness of it correlates with what he says in the video.

Don't know how random it was. Presumably they sat in a car outside the barracks and just waited for someone who looked like a soldier to come out?

Seeing how I am made out to be some sort of instigator of all this meta stuff, or someone who crossed a boundary: I too think there is a lot wrong with the 24/7 news cycle, with broadcasting/tweeting/showing news on the go, as it happens. It irks me to no end, how news that comes in one second is interpreted the next second already, along with faux pas classifications like "Islamic attack", "Trrrrist attack", and what have you.

But I do think I was cautious enough. I didn't link to gore, I didn't make the link clickable, and tbh, the footage in itself was visually not shocking. I merely put an unclickable link up pointing towards the suspect.

That's the last I will say about it. Hope youse (and Caek) understand. Didn't intend any derail or rushed judgement, but I honestly do not think posting the video as I did was an off-limits thing to do.

Carry on.

I didn't see a problem with posting that link tbh

ty Nick

this fucking prick

N*ck Gr*ffin MEP ‏@n*ckgr*ffinmep 2h

Grim news from #Woolwich. Terrible for family and also for Britain. Another bloody step on road to Islamic rule

Griffin has been terrible all night. You could quote ten tweets like that, all equally dire.

i thought posting the link was fine too, posting an actual document of something that happened is better than posting conjecture and speculation

the EDL scare me a bit more than griffin

ty Lex

I already dread UKIP, BNP, EDL and the likes holding hands and dancing around this tragedy for days, or maybe even weeks to come, "making a point"...

Mrs May added: "Despicable acts like these will not go unpunished."

is there a non-"us against them, yes, all of them" rhetorical import to this statement? you already shot them and presumably have them captive, so, no shit, but what else?

i think caek was raising a very valid point and i hope we can address the point without getting personal - this kind of attack is intimately tied into a media-saturated society, ought we to be careful about helping to fan that fire which seems to be what the murderers most want?

LBI I didn't really have a problem watching the video but idk what other people's level of sensitivity is. There's an debate to be had about broadcasting it rather than reporting it (I see on twitter many are criticising C4 and ITN for "giving terrorists a platform") but I don't know that it makes a difference - we're in an age where everything's filmed and available.

I can't get over the guy's demeanour in the video. Like what he just did isn't a big deal.

Well, that didn't take long

@NoodleVague, I agree and understand, I do. However, this thread was started simply because of this single event to begin with - so a video of the suspect speaking out seemed relevant, at least it did to me. The whole world and society are 'mediatized'. And we do need to be careful. I wasn't passing judgement, I wasn't linking to gore or prejudice. I merely dropped a link (not clickable) to a youtube video of the suspect speaking into a camera. If that is off limits from a 'rolling, this just in UK news' thread, then I don't know what qualifies for this.

@Onimo: Fully agree.

i don't know whether the link should be "off limits" or not LBI, and i'm certainly not castigating you for linking it. the wider moral question is very important tho i think. the world is mediatized but that saturation is the collective product of many individual decisions, isn't it?

i think this is v. relevant to this thread in much broader ways than the immediate murder that seeded it

this is the MP for Braintree, Essex

Brooks Newmark MP ‏@TweetBrooks 15m
Local mosque in Braintree attacked by man with knives + incendiary device. Man arrested. No one injured. Many thx 2 police 4 swift response.

and the EDL are in Woolwich right now

Yes, the wider moral question is very important. And it deserves to be discussed. If I blocked that or contributed to further mediatizing the world by linking to that video, then I am sorry, for that wasn't my intention.

But tbf, I thought ILX was a place where people look past quick judgements. As if I wanted to contribute hyping up this story. Nonsense. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, I "linked" to a vid that was relevant at the time, seeing it was about the suspect trying to explain why he did what he did.

It's odd noticing this huge divide between rolling US and rolling UK threads on ILX, on hot news items/disasters etc. The US threads are full of 'what happened one second ago'-links, whereas in this UK one, one gets grief for posting a link to a video, being accused of not distancing myself enough, or it not being nuanced enough, or it not having proved it's "relevance" yet.

Oh well.

Yeah, I think you have to consider relative impact. Sharing that link on ilx was a tiny thing that was done to inform and in turn enable informed discussion. Deciding to show it on the news or whatever is a totally different call.

At a press conference in Paris, the Prime Minister said Britain has faced terror attacks such as the one in Woolwich before and added: "We will never buckle in the face of it."

this seems such a stupid thing to say - how would "we" "buckle"? we can argue the toss about definitions of terrorism but it's extremely unlikely that there's a coherent cause or set of demands behind a murder like this. promising not to give in to the terrorists is pretty culturally loaded if the potential terrorists are anybody, anywhere.

at its least bad, rolling news is harmless, and i don't care about most of the threads. i even participate in some of them. i think this is special because it was so clearly designed to be something that would appeal to worst of rolling news and our desire to be appalled. the combination bothers me: the usual "hey everybody, check out THESE assholes!" style of journalism, whose sole justification is, "well, we've got to talk about something" [*], PLUS the posing for photographs by these particular assholes.

LBI, sorry if you feel like i'm having a go at you in particular. not my intention.

LBI, you put relevance in scare quotes you were the one who first mentioned relevance and has continued to mention it, and i only mentioned it to say "relevant to what?", which i think the fundamental premise the debate rests on.

[*] are you sure? i think the confusion in response to mordy's asking for "takes" is telling.

xp to LBI btw

probably answering my own point in re: Cameron - decrying the EDL for responding to this is missing the point. the EDL exists to respond to this, and presumably the attack was motivated in part by a desire to make EDL types respond to it. a perfect circle of othering in the cause of furthering agendas. really this is win/win except for the poor victim and their loved ones.

@Caek, I don't feel you are having a go at me. We good. I do find it difficult to understand why you lashed out at me, questioning my morality, when I simply link to a video that was on topic.

I put "revelance" in scare quotes, because you questioned the revelancy of the link to the vid I posted. As I already expressed, the real relevance remains to be proven and seen. Posting the video does not mean I attribute relevancy to it, but it also isn't a video that is completely useless or without meaning. Seeing that it is the suspect speaking about what he did and why he did it.

"hey everybody, check out THESE assholes!" style of journalism, whose sole justification is, "well, we've got to talk about something"

^^ I wholly agree with this statement. This were a lot of people today. But it was not me.

you lashed out at me, questioning my morality

wtf?

Seriously dudes, let go.

I have seen a bloke tonight crying because his brother died in Iraq, then arguing about Shariah law leading to 14 murders in the past year in Nottingham, to bombing North Korea. Extremists of all sorts are going to ply this for all the mileage they can get.

this interview with a woman who talked to the attackers is relevant, interesting:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10074881/Mum-talked-down-Woolwich-terrorists-who-told-her-We-want-to-start-a-war-in-London-tonight.html

Great, just had to be Nigerian.

I disagree, i think, with censorship of the depiction of an act or image just because it might be what the person responsible wanted. Yes, rolling news is often kneejerk after kneejerk but so is rolling anything. Calls for this or that not to be shown very often boils down to the politicisation of an event but just according to other tastes, moralities or agendas.

I obv see a case for not having a dude's head on the 6pm news. Linking footage of the guy responsible on a message board? No problem with that tbh.

xps ye were both overly touchy tbh lads stand down

darragh otm

eh? touchy? i'm not offended in the slightest. i didn't get the vapours at that link. i haven't questioned anyone's morality (think this might be a language issue to be honest?)

i just said rolling news is literally the worst thing in the world and those responsible for it should be shot into the centre of the sun.

i agree darragh there's no simple answer to "who decides what gets shown" but that means not just blithely accepting the simple answer that news organizations currently give. it's not as simple as censorship either, there's already a line beyond which people won't normally broadcast - incitement to commit hate crimes being part of that line i think

i'm not inclined to attribute a ton of rationality to the aggressors in a case like this but i think there has to be some difference between "if i do this my action will be broadcast to the world" and "if i do this my message will be broadcast - unmediated - to the world"

All wise thoughts tbf, i wasnt setting out a detailed manifesto or anything.

Ok caek yr not touchy. Sheesh.

yeah well like a good liberal i don't have any clear answers meself.
i'm interested in the numerous ways we might make ourselves complicit in violence.

Ya, we dont.

i think trying to limit access to video/information because you're afraid of inciting violence / upsetting ppl is a dangerous road to go down

i do know england has more repressive free speech laws than we do in the united states tho, so there's probably a cultural difference here

lol

...

the NYT refuses to print swear words in direct quotes.

i don't think this is a freedom of speech issue.

"i'm not saying pretend it didn't happen, but when you're doing exactly what terrorists want you to do, you want to be sure it's worth something."

you want to censor information bc it's want the terrorists want, no?

like who gives a shit what they want or don't want. it's newsworthy, it should be available. not saying it should be on network news but it's totally fair game for an ilx thread.

i think you're confusing editorial choices with censorship