The Newsnight broadcast interviews three people who are all over their mid-twenties, failing to include actual youth perspectives. Images used in the broadcast include flames, shattered glass, and photos of police and Boris Johnson, seemingly portraying youths and authorities in a negative light. Overall, the broadcast is biased as it does not give youths a platform to explain their views, instead relying on assumptions of older generations, and thus fails to give youths a fair voice.

1. 1. - Who do the reporters interview during the broadcast?
2. - What images are used in the news broadcast? What do they
suggest about the representation of young people in the riots?
3. - Is the broadcast biased in any way?
4. - Are youths given a fair voice within the broadcast?
The reporter during the Newsnight broadcast interviews 3 people, who are all
over the teen years of life. The youngest person who is getting interviewed
seems to be around the age of his mid twenties. One female being interviewed is
black. The use of the interviewee’s is fine as they can shed different views and
different opinions upon the subject, however it does not allow the younger
generation the ability to voice their own opinions and views upon the riots. This
is highly unfair as it solely focuses on displaying the behavior of a select few of
youths as being how the whole collective youths of this country behave. David
Starkey mentions how terrible the acts where but doesn’t explain other reasons,
however he just focuses on demonizing the youth. Starkey stated how he
believes “the whites have become black” – leading to Labour party leader, Ed
Miliband, calling his comments “racist, frankly”.
The background of the set contains images of youths setting fire to things,
flames and there is an overlay of shattered glass. The use of the broken glass
could be used to represent the state of Britain during the riots. This
representation could be to show how the generations have no communication
and therefore the generation gap is shattered. Another interpretation is that the
state of Britain is broken and shattered as there isn’t any communication
between different generations nor is anyone listening to the youth and that leads
to the riots among other rebellious acts.
Other images used involve photographs of police as well as Boris Johnson.
The use of these images may be to try and reinforce the figures of authority to
the youths. A further reading is the producers where trying to show the viewers
of the show who was meant to be in control and where meant to be able to assert
their power over the rioters. If this reading is accepted then they may be trying
to portray the authorities in a negative light as well as youth.
Overall, the images are showing the most frightening images of the riots,
this is probably the aim to try and create a moral panic surrounding youths as a
whole.
As a whole, the interview is biased, as it does not contain any youths or
young people explaining their opinions on why they believe that people done the
riots. This means that the youths of our country do not get given a fair voice,
which leads the whole interview to be biased as it only allows the older
generations to voice their views. Therefore the youths are not given a fair voice
as they get stuck with the assumptions of the elder generations.