Screenimage: The Guardian.
The events of the past five days around the country are a sobering sight for people around the United Kingdom. Rioting has been widespread and in amongst some of the abhorrent stories that have filtered through news agencies and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, message and stories of hope have trickled through too. Signs of solidarity in London with residents of areas cleaning up their own areas with brooms and applauding police cars driving through areas that now look like warzones are a relieving sight after days of trouble. Events like this have been organised for surrounding areas such as Birmingham, Bristol, West Bromwich and Wolverhampton and this community spirit is an unexpected side effect of this rioting. The most remarkable of these stories surely has to be that of Sangat TV, a Midlands-based Sikh television channel broadcasting on Sky channel 847 and the internet, which took to the streets on two nights of rioting around Birmingham and the Black Country as well as areas of London, armed only with a van and a camera.
Despite covering the events on the 8th August when rioting began in Birmingham, it was the night after that showed some of the most gripping and emotional live television ever shown on British screens. Sangat took television to another level, one that the bigger broadcasters such as the BBC and Sky seemed almost reluctant to broadcast in amongst more ‘juicy’ stories they favoured instead. The rawness of such a small crew filming events that Sky for example would not was incredible. The low budget nature of the channel – note, their adverts on a continuous loop – and of some of the interviews that were conducted, often from within cars with members of various religions in the middle of the night was staggering in a way that cannot be described. Sangat were able to broadcast live on the move to areas where they had heard there was trouble in the West Midlands.
Within only a few minutes, they could access Wolverhampton from Birmingham, somewhere that had suffered with violence throughout the day and was now seeing the trouble enter the night with looting still rife and reports of the violence failing to cease continuing. Sangat could access these areas and broadcast them live to an eager audience that had grown due to its presence being spread on social networks. What was once a small Sikh television station was now pushing the boundaries of live television journalism and reporting on stories as they happened in real time before Sky and BBC were able to.
Arguably this reached its peak when the cameras and presenter Uphinder Randhawa arrived at Dudley City Hospital in the early hours of the 10th August where local muslims had gathered due to news filtering of three local muslims being run over by rioters. This really reached its peak when footage of one of the brothers of the victims stormed out of the hospital in an emotional rage, having to be restrained by the crowd that had gathered outside. It was truly emotionally gripping television and wasn’t to be missed.
If there was an area to criticise Sangat TV, it would be very hard, but often there would be long sections where Randhawa would become increasingly more and more angry at other news agencies. The way they reported on the events wasn’t news-like and that was part of its charm but at times these impassioned rants became almost cringeworthy. There’s no doubt that they all did a lot of good, but for example, criticising Sky News and shouting loudly in front of a crowd of grieving members of the community that Sky reporters don’t deserve their money for not reporting fast enough didn’t seem substantiated. Sky and other news agencies have to abide by OFCOM’s laws and regulations and reporting on things that have yet to be reported as final, such as the three murders we have seen today in the Winson Green area of Birmingham, should have a good amount of confirmation before being reported on a national and international scale. Randhawa would do well to remember this instead of perhaps riding on his own viral success.
In conclusion, Sangat TV was fantastic and still happens to be fantastic. Reporting on riots can be hard when they’re so dispersed as we’ve seen in the past few days and their ability to give a willing audience pictures and more to the point proof of what was happening in their local areas when tensions were high was fantastic.
