The BBC's coverage was, in my opinion, very good and in the thick of it during those protests. I have to agree, however, that its coverage of the unrest in the last 24 hours has been extremely tepid.
Well, how much coverage of mindless destruction do we really need to see ?
I'm at saturation point now, seeing halfwits smashing up buildings and street furniture over the last year or so. Turning it into hours of live blow by blow coverage runs the risk to glorify it in the minds of all the like minded idiots up and down the country, and trigger copy-cat events.
I'm not advocating an excess of coverage up to and beyond saturation point - but last night, in the midst of a major story with numerous angles, and which was developing in any number of ways, for a good ten hours or so, the BBC repeatedly broke away from its coverage at a time when a significant number of viewers wanted (and in the case of those nearest the action, needed) more information. In amongst all the ignorant tripe spat out by ill-informed morons on Twitter, there were many more level-headed comments from people who couldn't understand why the BBC was breaking away from such an important story to show British Olympic Dreams or HARDtalk.
I'm not for a moment suggesting that the BBC should now - 24 hours on - keep cycling the same footage and repeating the same interviews, just to try to keep the story alive; my comments refer to the coverage of the events as they were unfolding and early this morning as the dust started to settle. In the thick of the story, and in its immediate aftermath, the BBC's coverage was, frankly, disappointing and lazy. No part of last night's coverage - in my eyes, at least - represented BBC News at its best, or BBC News trying its hardest to relentlessly cover every angle of a fluid and developing situation.
Some individuals in the BBC News team did excel themselves - Andy Moore and Rickin Majithia are two names that come to mind - but the overall coverage was a letdown, and I think that resulted not from a failure of those on the ground, but from some very poor editorial decisions.
If anyone disagrees with that assessment, I'd genuinely like to hear why.
Clearly, there were some limitations beyond their control - among them, very important safety concerns for their teams, and the destruction of broadcast equipment - but there were still many angles that could have been explored and resources that could have been tapped (including Twitter and eyewitness accounts and video) in order to sustain rolling coverage, and which did not require a reporter live on the scene on camera.
