by: Jane Martinson

Amid the shock and grief of the Manchester Arena attack one local paper got it right. This is why.

Sarah Lester was at home with her young family when the night news editor called to say that a loud noise had been heard at the Manchester Arena. Some were saying it was a blast, others that it was part of that night’s Ariana Grande show. “There was a lot of chatter on Twitter,” said Lester, senior editor of the Manchester Evening News, who worked for most of the next 72 hours.

A few hours after the bomb went off at the end of the concert, and long before the emergency response service was up and running, social media users were being urged to look to Lester and her team for the truth. “I recommend you follow MEN newsdesk to get FACTS from the people who are there,” tweeted talkradio host Iain Lee. Others in New York and South Africa said the same.

While the media were widely condemned for their response to the Manchester bombing by last week’s review by the former head of the civil service Bob Kerslake – along with the fire service and Vodafone’s National Mutual Aid Telephony service – the 150-year-old local newspaper was singled out for praise. Not just by Kerslake’s panel but by the bereaved families and other victims. “Our local paper … they’ve been amazing,” one told the review.

Such comments made a sharp contrast with those about the behaviour of many journalists working for national and international news organisations. So upset were people about being “hounded” and “bombarded” by reporters who would not take no for an answer, many brought it up without being asked, forcing the issue into the Kerslake review.

The report’s authors expressed “shock” and “dismay” about the media’s behaviour, but who wouldn’t be? One woman had her mobile phone called as she lay in hospital, herself injured, beside her seriously injured daughter. Some described being put under pressure to participate in TV programmes and of having to hide beneath coats to avoid being snapped coming out of hospital. Pictures were taken of grieving families through windows while one reporter tried to gain access to a house by sticking a foot in the door. Even worse was the treatment of children: one child was stopped by journalists on the way to school while another girl was given condolences on the doorstep before official notification of the death of her mother.

The language in last week’s report is surprisingly similar to the report into the Hillsborough disaster by Bishop James Jones. “Families spoke of being harassed outside their homes, and of their children being stopped on the way to school,” it said. Hillsborough occurred 28 years before last May’s Manchester bombing. How can so little have changed? Perhaps more importantly, what should be done about it?

Kerslake’s report made several recommendations, from emergency planning sessions which involve the media to the Independent Press Standards Operation adapting its guidelines to deal with fast-moving emergencies. But just as important now is to consider why the Manchester Evening News got it right? Lester and her team point out that being embedded in the community means no reporter wants to get anything wrong. Her staff live in the same streets and their children go to the same schools as the concert goers.

But, unlike with Hillsborough, the team had to deal with a flurry of posts online, some of which were coming from as far away as the US. Under the guidance of social media manager Beth Ashton, each picture of a potential victim was double checked, often by calling the poster. Soon after MEN launched the hashtag #MissingInManchester to try and reunite loved ones, local people began sending in their own pictures in a desperate bid for information.

Lester talked about staff members who volunteered to come in and help, putting in the legwork to check a story rather than running away with a social media post. “We wanted to be first but more importantly we wanted to be right.” It quickly became apparent that that’s what readers wanted too. In the first two days after the attack, 5.7 million people read 10.7m pages on the Manchester Evening News website – 900,000 of those people were in Greater Manchester. “We just followed the rules,” she told me. Ironically, those rules of good old-fashioned journalism are already included in the editor’s code of conduct which governs national newspapers. The Kerslake report flags up those parts of the code, governing privacy, harassment and intrusion into grief or shock, that were breached.

They exist, but nobody seems to be enforcing them, especially in moments of chaos and stress. Without a named journalist or media organisation, Ipso is unable to levy any sanction, not even on the hack who apparently, after the Manchester atrocity, slipped a note into a biscuit tin promising medical staff £2,000 for information.

Many reading the Kerslake report and this article will suggest that the only answer is Leveson 2, the official inquiry into the behaviour of the press and its relations with the police, now abandoned by the government. Many of the Hillsborough families supported such an inquiry after last year’s report into that disaster and its media aftermath. But at the risk of further irritating those outraged by the Guardian’s failure to support another official probe, I am not sure such a process is a priority. There is no lack of evidence that this sort of behaviour is happening and is unacceptable.

What’s needed more than anything is a new mindset. Codes and panels have their place but too many journalists, desperate for a fresh story or a new line, appear more afraid of disappointing editors and scuppering careers than upsetting already traumatised human beings. Editors, however innocent they think themselves to be, should act to change this culture.

There will be meetings about the shortcomings exposed in the Kerslake report; Ipso is planning one on April 18, but it’s just too easy to blame “rogue elements” – the foreign correspondent or freelance news agency – for such bad behaviour.

What should happen? Here’s my wishlist. Editors should insist on only publishing stories from journalists who sell or write facts that comply with the code. They should agree to suffer the consequences arising from a breach, which should be financial and not just a page 2 paragraph of regret. They must humanise their thinking: how would they feel if a relative of theirs was being harassed or misled by the press.

Overhaul coordination between the authorities and other respectable media outlets so that if a victim or traumatised relative wants to speak, they can do so to a pool reporter. The royal family gets to do this on big occasions, why not those suffering trauma? Journalists will always want to get scoops but the cost of doing so should never cross the line of human decency.

Avoid distressing duplication. The BBC won praise from Kerslake simply for managing to coordinate its staff so that grieving families did not get 10 different calls from reporters all working for the same organisation.

In a troubled time for the media – printed, digital, broadcast – the connection with readers and viewers is more important than ever. “The way we covered the bomb changed the relationship with our audience,” said Lester. “We feel we established a bond of trust.” Out of tragedy can come good.