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Police lost control of media in Nicola Bulley case report concludes

ACM’s media trainer, Richard Uridge, reflects on the College of Policing report into Lancashire Constabulary’s handling of the media in the sad case of Nicola Bulley – the woman who was at the centre of a missing person’s inquiry in early 2023 after she disappeared on a walk along the River Wyre in the North of England.

The report is comprehensive. It’s constructive. And it makes lots of really insightful recommendations about how to improve the sometimes difficult relationship between the media and the police. In particular it highlights the need for media training. But it also poses an important question for everyone working in media and communication around the role that social media plays. Can the beast be tamed, Richard asks? He doubts it. But it has a huge and growing influence on policing.

You can read the full report here. And here’s what Richard was saying about the case at the time.

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Adversarial or conversational? How to tell if you’re going to get a media grilling.

Agreed to give an interview to the media? Want to know if it’ll be adversarial or conversational? Then find out using our hot or cold interview style predictor. Not a very catchy name we’ll grant you. But it does exactly what the name suggests.

Our media trainer, Richard Uridge, indulges in a little bit of journalistic finger wagging answer in this, the latest episode in the Z to A of Media Training (sister series of the Z to A of Presenting – because why start with the letter A when everybody else does)?

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Media and communications lessons from the Nicola Bulley case

Cosy chats with friendly desk sergeants. Daily calls to the duty inspector from the newsroom of the local paper. Off the record briefings for the gentlemen of the press. A more symbiotic and trusting relationship between the media and the police…

All of these things and much much more have been said by the media commentariat over the past few weeks. Largely by retired journalists (and here I must declare an interest) recalling the good old days and conveniently ignoring the one thing that has changed both policing and reporting on policing out of all recognition since they dictated their copy from a red phone box: social media.

Nature, they say, abhors a vacuum. Facebook, Twitter and, especially it seems, TikTok love one. In the absence or scarcity of official information in rushes a tidal wave of bilge. So-called amateur sleuths (I’m inclined to call them idiots) broadcasting breathlessly that they’re convinced – without a shred of either evidence or decency – that Bulley was being held against her will by shadowy figures. A private underwater search company stating unequivocally that the poor woman’s body could not have been in the river, as if the sonar equipment they were using was somehow any less fallible than the humans operating it.

And all of this, of course, making the agony suffered by the Bulley family even harder to bear and the job of the police investigating her disappearance even harder to do.

Much of the criticism levelled at Lancashire Police has been ill informed and unfair. Particularly the condemnation of their decision to go public with highly personal information about Bulley’s private life. They didn’t do so lightly, I would have thought. Nor without the family’s consent. Details of her struggles with alcohol were about to be made public anyway, after they were leaked to the media as an exclusive – possibly in return for money. So they decided to reveal the information themselves to lessen the value and impact of the leak. Better to keep ahead of the narrative as police press officers might put it. What else were we to do, they might reasonably ask of all those questioning their approach including the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, and the leader of the commons, Penny Morduant.

To this point specifically, I believe the police were right to reveal at least some of this information but wrong in the way and to the extent they went about it. They knew, presumably from day one, that Bulley was vulnerable. So they should also have known from the outset that at some point this information would be made public, warned the family accordingly and together drawn up a plan to manage it. They may have done this to be fair; I have no special insight. But if they did, the public part of the plan could have been handled better.

The police initially said at a news conference Nicola had “a number of specific vulnerabilities” which meant she was “graded as high risk.” This crucial issue was rather lost in the remaining 30 minutes or so of the conference which seemed to be more of a point by point rebuttal of criticism of the inquiry than an update on a missing person. I’ve watched the conference in its entirety twice. It certainly wasn’t the “utter disaster” as some of the more colourful coverage suggests. It certainly was a thorough and detailed description of the inquiry to date. It also nailed some of the more outlandish, to use the words of assistant chief constable, Peter Lawson, “ill informed speculation and conjecture.” (And, by the way, it was good to see the conference chaired by Mr Lawson, not by the senior investigating officer, Rebecca Smith. Sometimes the messenger is as important as – or even a part of – the message).

Picture credit: Getty Images

But what that conference also did – ironically perhaps most successfully of all – was get every journalist wondering exactly what those specific vulnerabilities were. Indeed, this was the very first and last question asked by reporters – almost inaudibly, off microphone – at the conference. This line of questioning was only going to louder and more persistent. To not have anticipated this and dealt with it there and then was problematic. All Mr Lawson said at the time was “I feel we’ve said as much as we can about that. It is personal, private information known to the investigation but foremost in our thoughts, in addition to the integrity of the investigation, is the privacy of Nicola’s family…”

So what changed in just a few hours? Because later that day, in a follow up statement, the police added that those vulnerabilities included alcohol misuse connected to the menopause. This smacked of being bounced into saying more by events, rather than being in control of events. I’d have been inclined to release the two statements simultaneously at the news conference. I’d have advised omitting the menopause point entirely. It’s too personal and, on the face of it, much less pertinent than the alcohol issue. I’d also have explained the background to the release and attempted to reassure the public – and women in particular – that this was a highly unusual move in response to irresponsible coverage and wouldn’t become a routine part of missing persons inquiries. To avoid losing the focus on these really important points I’d have shortened the conference and left out anything that sounded defensive. There’s a time and a place for that. And it isn’t when a person is still missing.

In their defence most police press officers are way down the command chain, have no rank and I’m sure are regularly ignored when asked for advice. But that doesn’t make the advice wrong. They should be speaking truth to power and asking the SIO or ACC:

Be absolutely clear: what is the purpose of this news conference or release?

Is it to give the public an important update on progress or to seek further public help – an appeal for witnesses for example?

It it to protect the family from potentially hurtful information – true or otherwise – being put into the public domain by unscrupulous and insensitive media coverage or social media commentary?

Or is it to defend the force and more to do with reputation management?

The first two, sir or ma’am, are justified. The third is not. Until well after a missing person is found. Alive, or as it would now seem in this desperately sad case, dead.

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“I don’t like the sound of my own voice.”

If I had a pound for every time somebody said to me after listening to recordings of media interviews or presentations they’d given I’d be a wealthy man. It’s usually the first thing people tell me when I ask for feedback on their performances at our training sessions. Followed swiftly by “I don’t like the way I look!” So why is this? Are we simply vain and shallow creatures us humans – more interested in style over substance? Or is something else going on?

Something else is going on. It’s partly physics and partly perception as Richard Uridge explains in the latest episode of The Z to A of Presentation: V is for Voice.

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Why those online technical issues may be nothing to do with your internet connection

How old is your computer? Is it running the latest operating system? Have you upgraded the memory recently? Cleared out all those unused programmes and files? Given it a spring clean?

A quick survey of my contacts from businesses both large and small suggests that many IT upgrade and replacement programmes stalled during Covid-19 and haven’t really recovered since. In other words, we’re all running desktops, laptops and handhelds that are – like me – beginning to show their age: creaking a bit when asked to do too much!

Now in the recent past this might not have mattered much. A slow programme and the occasional crash were annoying, certainly, but something only we noticed and were directly affected by. Now, in the age of LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook lives those annoying little glitches are there for everyone to see or hear – literally when the audio drops out or the video breaks up mid presentation.

Most of the time we blame the internet connection (if I had a pound for every time I’d uttered the words ‘”bloody BT” under my breath during an online meeting I’d be rich as well as Rich). But I’ve concluded that many of the problems are not connectivity issues at all and are more to do with our CPUs (central processing units) and GPUs (graphics processing units) getting hot and bothered.

I use a bit of software called NZXT Cam to monitor the performance of my six year old PC and it’s particularly interesting to keep an eye on the load and temperatures stats for the processors (see pic). As I’m typing this blogpost with only one Chrome window open the load and temperature readings on both processors are low (around 6% and 35C respectively.) But when I open up the Zoom app, a few additional windows and a couple of other programmes the load and temperature soar. Like driving an old car, you can put your foot down now and again but if you floor it for too long it’ll overheat and break down. And so it is with computers.

Like driving an old car if the needles are in the red for too long your computer will probably break down.

Think about it . If, like me, your answer to my initial question was more than three years then your computer predates much of what has emerged since – LinkedIn lives, Zoom and MS Teams meetings, Restream and StreamYard, the continued growth of business into networks like YouTube….

We’re expecting ever more from our tech and it’s perhaps hardly surprising that it’s letting us down. Now I’m not suggesting you order the very latest spec of PC or Mac especially at a time of crazy inflation and budgetary constraint. But what I am saying is give your computer a helping hand. So here are some quick and easy things you can do to get the very best out of it.

  1. Close all other windows, tabs and programmes apart from the one you’re using – for example, Zoom.
  2. Use an ethernet cable to connect to your router/modem rather than rely on wireless.
  3. Don’t use Bluetooth microphones and headphones. AirPods may look cool but the built in or hardwired ones gobble up less processing power and aren’t subject to interference.
  4. Try to make sure you’re the only one using your internet connection during mission critical online meetings and presentations. Working from home is great but less so if grandad is watching the cricket online and the kids are playing Counter-Strike just as you’re pitching to the board for a rise.
  5. Make sure there are no programmes running in the background using bandwidth. For example, at ACM Training we store a lot of data in the cloud (on Dropbox). Uploading a video at the same time as you’re running an online meeting is asking for trouble.
  6. Keep your computer up-to-date with the latest software and patches.
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How to make sure your online videos are in sync

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed an increasing number of videos on TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook with audio sync problems?

You know the sort of thing: where the lips are moving but nothing’s coming out. Or the lips stop and the speech continues!

I spotted it most recently while editing the highlights (I use that word advisedly) of me playing Gypsy Rose Rich on last week’s The Big Live Breakfast Burrito..! the supernatural one. Ghosts in the machine as it were.

If it’s happening to your presentations then here’s a relatively simple solution and the very latest in the Z to A of Presenting: S is for Sync.

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No Shave Sunday Science: is video content for business dead or dying?

ACM Training boss, Richard Uridge, looking like he’s lost his razor.

Is video content dead or dying in the world of business marketing and promotion? Or is it very much alive and kicking? To find out I simultaneously posted two bits of near identical content to LinkedIn. The only difference was one was a video (this) and the other was a written article based on the transcription. I called it No Shave Sunday Science and enlisted LinkedIn members to help me with the experiment. I wanted to know if more people would respond to the spoken word or the written word. Very unscientific results to follow…

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Sit or Stand – which is best for online videos and presentations?

I’ve been busy conducting an informal (very unscientific) survey to determine the ratio between sitting and standing in LinkedIn, YouTube (and other) videos and live streams. Perhaps no surprise that sitting wins hands – or rather bums – down. But is sitting really a winner? Or might standing be better – for you and your audience?

Let’s face it, seeing an endless procession of head and shoulder shots on Zoom and Teams is boring. If you enjoyed that sort of thing you’d stamp passports for Border Force for a living (with apologies to those of you who stamp passports for Border Force for a living).

So here, in the very latest episode of the not-yet-quite-awarding-winning-but-it-can-only-be-a-matter-of-time Z to A of Presenting, I explore the pros and cons of each and ask is there a third way?

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It’s over darling (I mean dialling)

My divorce should be coming through this week…

When we first got married more than a quarter of a century ago I genuinely couldn’t have lived without you. In fact, I’d loved you from afar for a whole lot longer. After all, we’d grown up together…

Through draughty red telephone boxes – less-than-cosy chats chewing through pockets full of tuppences. Through reverse charges when the money ran out (which it often did), three digit phone numbers and party lines. The operator sat in the exchange at the end of the road “putting you through now.”

We’ve been through more codes than Bond – 01, 071, 0171, 020, 0207 and counting…

We’ve been together through faxes. Through that weird whistling-while-you-wait dial up – all 56Kbps of it. And I’d like to say we’d been through twisted pairs together to the promised land of superfast fibre. But that’s where our relationship has been stuck. In the 3Mbps doldrums for many, many years and through many, many tears.

Let’s face it, we’ve grown apart. My need for speed is greater than your ability to deliver it. I’m sick of your excuses: too far from the exchange; not economically viable; not enough call for it in your area…

I know I’ve threatened to leave you many times before. And every time you came running back to me with promises you’d change. Like when you said you were over your love affair with the local copper. You telegraphed your intentions but in the end left me hanging from pole to pole.

So I’ve hooked up with somebody new. Somebody who can deliver. So long BT. It was fun while it lasted. But I should’ve left you years ago.

I hear you may be hooking up with a foreign lover. Good luck with that. They’ll promise you gifts. But they won’t deliver. Then you’ll know how I feel.


PS If you want to get a hold of us here at ACM Training you’ll find plenty of other ways than an old school landline on our website (which will, of course, one day be old school in itself but by then we’ll all have chips in our heads and just have to think of somebody and they’ll be in touch).

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The end of the F word?

No not that F word! But the F pattern that describes the way the human eye takes in content from a screen. A quick scan from left to right along the top of the screen (the top bar of the F). A smaller scan just beneath it (the second horizontal bar). And a glance up and down the left hand side (the upright of the F).

Eye tracking and heat mapping studies of the human eye established this browsing pattern and, based on that research, web writers and designers were encouraged to string the hooks – the words and images – that grab a potential reader’s attention – somewhere along the F. Not bury those hook so far down that they wouldn’t be seen let alone read. Except maybe the F pattern no longer applies.

I say this because I’ve just updated my iPhone to iOS 15.1 and I’ve noticed the address bar has moved to the bottom of the screen (see screenshot). This may seem like a modest layout tweak. But this is HUGE change. It’s akin to the change from top-loading to front loading washing machines. Seriously, I don’t think anyone has yet fully thought through the implications. It could, for example, mean that the screen space just above that box with the URL in becomes as important as the top of the screen. So perhaps the F will morph into an E.

An annotated iPhone screengrab showing the address bar has moved from top to bottom.

That said, what hasn’t changed it is that words still matter. Always have. Always will. Top loading and front loading washing machines have clothes in common. F pattern or E pattern websites have words in common. The right word in the right place is always going to do better than the wrong word in the wrong place. So it’s worth asking: is this the right place? Right down the bottom here with the address bar (at least on my iPhone)? I’m keen to know your thoughts…

Still not sure what the F pattern is? Then here’s a quick video we put together for one of our clients who used our Ask the Owls service on our YouTube channel.


This post first appeared on LinkedIn and will be leading me to update (yet again) my modest little book Writing for the Web which is available to buy here and on the Apple and Amazon bookstores for just £4.99 which is probably less than you spend on coffee everyday and will give you a buzz for weeks.

UPDATE: Since posting this I’ve discovered that it’s possible to change the location of the search bar back to the top of the screen. So maybe news of F’s death is a little premature. If, like me, you want to change back to the old location go to settings>Safari>Tabs and select the Single Tab radio button as per the screenshot.