UK media in guns and drugs frenzy

Ever since I posted that last article about the shoot out in San Antonio I’ve been thinking about the impact of drugs on Ibiza. I’ve also been looking at the media coverage given to the island this summer for an article to appear in Pacha magazine, although I wasn’t able to go into detail about the drugs issue.

(Focusing on the positive coverage such as this one from the New York Times wasn’t a matter of cowardice. Articles about the drugs scene can so easily be overtaken by events that I didn’t want to write something that would be out of date by the time the magazine appears.)

Anyway, this Sunday Mirror article is typical of the ones that have appeared since the shooting. It’s not factually inaccurate, but I don’t think it’s exactly true either.

Having worked for too many years in newspapers I’m pretty sure that what happened was that the original story about the shooting was sufficiently interesting for the news editor to send a reporter over to Ibiza for a few days. That meant he had to come back with something to justify the cost of sending a journalist over.

He couldn’t say, even if he thought it was true: “It seems to have been a one-off event and it’s been dealt with by the police.” If he tried that he certainly wouldn’t be top of the list next time an expenses paid trip to the sun came up. He might even lose his job completely.

Instead he comes up with:

An insider helping police with their investigation said: "There's a lot of bad blood over what's happened. There's talk of hired hands and relatives flying in to Ibiza hell-bent on revenge."

Every story has had some variation on this unnamed source working with the police. There’s no hard evidence of any follow up and I’m inclined to think there won’t be. It is, however, in the interests of journalists and the police to suggest there is a real threat. Both want more resources and this is one way to get it.

In my next post I’ll give you my take on the Ibiza drug scene. Meanwhile even a supposedly serious newspaper has got carried away with itself...

Gang violence erupts as rave craze returns

With the rebirth of dance culture, hard drugs are openly for sale on the streets of Ibiza. Tonight, 40,000 ecstasy tablets will be bought on the island. Now the brutality that underpins the trade is boiling over, and the party paradise is turning into a nightmare world of contract killings