Ria Chatterjee on reporting youth violence: "It was having an impact on me"
The Channel 4 News reporter discusses her work to change the narrative around youth violence, championing hopeful solutions and protecting mental health as a storyteller. Photography by Tristan Bejawn
In 2015, after six years of falling by most measures, serious youth violence in London and across the United Kingdom started rising again. It just so happened that in September of that year I moved into Brixton, South London, and started my career as a youth and education professional, working at three state schools in different parts of the capital and volunteering at two local community centres.
My deepening journey as a facilitator engaging with young people on the ground and a writer analysing trends in youth culture eventually led to my book, Cut Short, whose story covers until the pandemic in 2020. As the lockdowns held everyone indoors and society became distracted with wider social breakdown, violence appeared to abruptly pause, then in 2021 it returned to its steep upward trajectory again, and has remained at a normalised high since. This is despite the many positive developments in the way the problem is viewed and treated, such as the idea of a ‘public health’ approach towards solving it becoming embraced by policymakers and the inception of 17 Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) in cities and towns across the country.
When I started writing the prologue and proposal for Cut Short in the chaotic summer of 2018 — during which stabbings and shootings in South London, in particular, were suffocating my youth work on a weekly basis — I would regularly hold phone calls with experts: youth workers, researchers, community leaders. Among the first conversations I had was with the ITV London News reporter, Ria Chatterjee. I remember sitting by a cafe at the top of the escalators at Waterloo Station, waiting to catch a delayed train to visit my mum in the western suburbs, and missing it because of how richly insightful our conversation became. We discussed the impact of the hot weather and school holidays on community relations. “You might say, in cruel logic,” I would write in Cut Short’s introduction, “that if ethics were measured by temperature, summer is the cold season.”
At the time, Ria was a reporter for ITV London News. She’d spotted the upward trend in violence and, since 2017, made it her mission to not only try to understand what was happening, but attempt to steer the narrative in terms of how it was playing out on our television screens. Her stories captured tragedy but pointed towards hope. She’d interviewed me about the moral panic around UK drill music earlier that year. She’d reported from every corner of the capital, catching a cab whenever a report of another violent incident came in, meeting with bereaved families and holding a dialogue with community members.
In 2022, Ria would be shortlisted for the prestigious Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Ills after spending a week reporting in Croydon, South London, following the murder of a 14-year-old boy called Jermaine Cools, as the local community mobilised to heal. She spoke to the family and undertakers at the funeral parlour, and visited a local primary school to highlight how it was taking a proactive, holistic approach towards making its pupils feel included and safe. I was humbled to see that Ria’s report on the publication of Cut Short also informed her nomination for the prize.
Earlier this summer I met up with Ria — who now reports for Channel 4 News — to reflect on the legacy of her work. We spoke about her efforts to change the narrative around youth violence, the importance of showcasing hopeful solutions, and how she has learned to protect her own mental health as a frontline storyteller.
Ciaran Thapar: Hi Ria. When did you start out in broadcast journalism?
Ria Chatterjee: I started when I finished my postgraduate diploma at Cardiff University. I did that for a year, then I went to Sky for a bit to work on the news desk. Then I went off to the regions, BBC South East Today, to report for a few years, doing anything and everything. That came to an end naturally, because the same stories were coming up, time and time again. Then I moved to ITV London News in 2012, the same year as the Olympics. London’s a great patch, because you share a lot of the main news agenda. This is where the political heartbeat is, there is so much going on. I’ve always been interested in social affairs, so there was so much to explore. There was a city’s entire skin to get underneath.
We first met at the start of 2018, when you interviewed me about serious youth violence for ITV London News. What made you focus on this issue?
I’d been doing bits and bobs on it for a while. But there was a shift for me that happened at the start of 2018. I remember being sent to the Peckwater Estate, in Kentish Town. There had been a few fatal stabbings in the space of a week. And I ended up spending a week going back-and-forth to that estate, speaking to lots of young people. I remember being down there and thinking, there has to be a shift in the reporting on this subject. Normally, you go down to the scene, there are the usual visuals — police tape, flowers — and you film it all, then you go and knock on some doors to find anyone who might talk on the issue. And inevitably you end up speaking to people who are in the area, but adjacent to the issue, so they don’t fully understand what is going on. You get something like, ‘oh, this is normally a peaceful area and I can’t believe this has happened.’ But what does that tell the viewer? What am I learning from this? That’s what I’d ask myself. And the answer is: absolutely nothing. But in contrast, I remember this one 16-year-old who was out on the estate. It was freezing at the time, she was in her pyjamas, she’d thrown on a green duffle coat, she had frost-bitten cheeks. She’d just gotten out of bed, which communicated to me that she cared so much; that she wanted to be on the estate in the square talking to people, because these multiple tragedies had happened where she lived. She was talking about how scared young people were. She said, ‘listen, sometimes my friends will pay to get a cab from one street to the other because they’re scared that if they walk down this one street something might happen to them,’ you know? She also said to me, ‘why don’t politicians come down here and try to understand us and how we live?’ And it really stayed with me, it struck me. I thought, this is it, we have to start looking at this from different perspectives. That was the shift for me, and that’s when I started meeting people like you and so many other people, trying to centre young people in it all.
What was taking on such a heavy subject like for you?
Initially, I was trying to connect with people and understand what was going on from different perspectives: young people, mental health, social media, policing, schools. I tried to go through each level, and you can approach it from that social perspective, but obviously this is an issue that has heartbreak at its centre. So a lot of what I was doing was sitting in front of very recently bereaved families, or families who were still waiting for an outcome for a case, for justice. I could just feel the trauma from people, and it was pretty relentless, sadly, across 2018 and beyond. It felt like there were stabbings all the time. So I was constantly sitting with families who were dealing with their loss, trying to make sense of it all. I find the question you’ve asked me quite tricky to answer, because I firmly believe that the story should never be about the journalist. It was never about me. But what was becoming obvious to me, as I continued reporting on this, was that it was having an impact on me. Because it was vicarious trauma. And what was so heartwarming and beautiful was that the youth workers that I eventually came to know were saying to me, ‘be careful, you need to look after yourself.’ I remember doing a panel with Florence Eshalomi MP at City Hall. We were talking about this exact issue, and she asked me to sit on a panel, so I did. And it came to one point where I was describing a recent story and I had to pinch myself so hard because I was on the verge of crying. I thought, I can’t sit here on this panel of people and cry about this, particularly because there were people in the audience who were so much closer to it than I was. But there is this warmth within the community of people who are relentlessly trying to tackle this issue, and from that warmth came this concern for me, this reporter who can go home afterwards and kind of disconnect from it. I thought it was so generous that people were telling me to look after myself.
Did you act on their advice?
I think, honestly speaking, I heard what people were telling me, and I recognised how thoughtful and wonderful it was, but their actual advice went in through one ear and out through the other. I just didn’t see it as something that could be true. Even though I was feeling impacted by it, I wasn’t necessarily cognisant of what I was feeling and what it was connected to. Then I think there was a point where I started taking it seriously. Where I was living at the time, there had been a fatal stabbing on top of the road, so the road was cordoned off, and I just spent the weekend indoors. I didn’t even want to go outside. Which made me wonder, why do you not want to go outside? Why is this feeling so heavy and so much? I didn’t stop reporting on it, but I became more mindful about what I was doing. I started meditating, which completely changed my life. And I started taking steps outside of work to protect my mind.
Well done.
What did you do?
I have always turned to writing as a way of coping with things in my life. Which was great, and Cut Short was a big part of that, in terms of the demands of my youth work. But in the end it became a source of therapy and of stress, because it was so attached to my professional identity. So it’s taken me some time since the book’s publication to unpack what I’ve experienced as a youth worker. I only recently started actual therapy, for example, and the stuff it’s throwing up is interesting. Rationally, I’ve always known about the importance of looking after your mental health. Just like you, I had others in my community telling me that I needed to look after myself. But there is a difference between understanding something and acting upon it. I’m only acting upon it properly now. Now, if I’m going to interview someone and have a heavy conversation, like this one, or I’m going to do youth work in a prison, I block off time for myself afterwards. Before, for years it was just go, go, go, with no concern for my own well-being. I’d speak on a panel about youth violence on an evening after doing three workshops in the afternoon and writing an article in the morning, all in one day. Which, looking back, was just too much. Now I’ve slowed everything down and learned to pause.
Going back to my example of not wanting to leave the flat. It’s not that I was scared or thought something was going to happen to me. It was because I’d just spent the prior week, and the week before that, and the week before that, with people who were devastated over the loss of their loved one. So that’s where your mind immediately goes, and you get taken back to that moment. So you think, I don’t want to see the police tape, because you think of those people. That’s what was hard about it.
What has changed in the reporting on serious youth violence since 2017?
I think the biggest thing that changed was probably a shift towards bringing hope into the narrative. I remember when I interviewed you about Cut Short, you used this phrase, “hope is the medicine”. I think that’s true, and that idea is being embraced much more among people who are working on the frontline. I became more cognisant of it in my reporting. It can’t just always be relentless tragedy, there has to be some way of communicating the resilience, the love, the hope and the effort that goes into protecting young people, offering a sense of aspiration, you know? Because actually, there is a paradox at the heart of this issue. It’s about life being lost or curtailed in a literal and a systemic sense, but it’s also about giving life and hope and aspiration and inspiration.
Do you have an example?
There are moments that stick with me which represent realness and authenticity. They are moments that audiences, viewers, readers, would otherwise not necessarily see. I came away from the shoot that we did on Cut Short feeling joyful for Jhemar. I think he was freestyling that day, and he said, ‘I’m gonna pull out my book of wisdom, got my pen just inking.’ And that phrase just stayed with me, because he was so in it and driven by creativity. He is obviously a skilled lyricist, he was so excited, he had so much energy, and I got back to do the edit and that’s what I wanted to inject the piece with. Yes, he’s going to talk about his brother’s passing and you’re going to talk about the systemic issues. But what is going to carry this piece is his energy.
Any other examples?
I spent a week in Croydon with a youth worker called Anthony King, the week that the community was preparing for the funeral of 14-year-old Jermaine Cools. I felt it was significant because often from these moments of extreme tragedy you can see people pulling together and significant change happens. So I went to the funeral, I went to the funeral parlour which was preparing the coffin — his parents gave us permission to film there — and which provided a bereavement service. I went to a local primary school, which was taking a holistic approach towards trying to tackle what was happening. It was a story about how the community was pulling together to support the family. And again, the people, the characters involved in that series, give everything to this. They literally put their heart and soul into making change, and incredibly I think it was last year, for an entire year, Croydon didn’t have any teenage murders.
Why do you think you’ve been successful at getting deep access to stories?
It wasn’t easy. When I started out, it was hard to get access, and anyone working in this industry knows that you have to take time to build relationships with people, because trust is everything. There is a widespread lack of trust in the media, across the world, but obviously we know that there are particular communities for well-documented reasons who do not trust the media, so that was a hard process. It was just about showing up; being present not only at stories where things were happening, but taking an interest in the work people were doing. I spent time on the weekends going to see people, spending time at workshops, because I was interested and I care and I was grateful that people were welcoming me. Now they are people who I will know for the rest of my life. Those kinds of relationships are invaluable. A few weeks ago, somebody contacted me whose nephew was stabbed and suffered life-changing injuries a couple of years ago. She’s become a campaigner now, she was holding an event, and she wanted me to be on the panel. I said, thanks for asking me, are you sure that I’m not going to be taking up other peoples’ space? And she replies, ‘I feel, and so many people I have spoken to feel, that you have taken the time to report on this issue differently, and with a lot of empathy and care, and that means a lot to us all.’ So I guess that’s a quality that people recognise. People sense that I’m not just doing this to have something on air…this is a hard question to answer!
You do a lot of reporting on the Metropolitan Police.
With policing, it’s an ongoing issue and the story has so many layers. There is the relationship between women and police, between the Black community and police. I think it’s one of those stories that is going to keep going for a long time, that’s just the reality. We know that certain forces are taking the steps to make changes internally, but at the same time, you have communities and individuals having their own experiences with the police. So as a journalist, it’s about trying to balance those two things.
You left ITV London to go to Channel 4 in 2022. What’s changed?
It’s different because Channel 4 News takes in issues from across the world. We have a US correspondent, a South America correspondent; we have people all over the place who are bringing in excellent stories. So that does change things because it broadens the scope, and it’s not like we’re competing with each other, but it means you have to be able to say, ‘this is a really important story and this is why it should be on the news tonight.’ That changes things a bit, it does. But I’m still reporting on the same issues. I did a story about youth violence the other day. I’m still reporting on the issues that are a part of that universe. I do a lot about policing, for example. And so it’s different and the same, in a way.
You can follow Ria on Twitter and Instagram.
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Such a fascinating, thoughtful interview - thanks Ciaran and Ria.