South Wales Echo
The events that shook Cardiff on the evening of May 22, 2023, and into the early hours of the next day, began with the deaths of two teenagers - Kyrees Sullivan, 16, and Harvey Evans, 15. The childhood friends died in an e-bike crash in Ely, one of the city’s most deprived wards. Accounts that the pair were being pursued by a police van minutes earlier quickly began to circulate throughout the community. Within hours, parts of the area were hit by a wave of rioting, leaving a trail of destruction with rocks, debris and the blazing wrecks of overturned cars scattered over the suburban streets. The tragedy at the heart of that chaotic night scarred the local community - as did the subsequent public disorder and the questions over the police’s actions. As this fast-moving story unfolded, it presented many difficulties for our reporting team on the ground. Viewed with hostility and mistrust by those involved in the rioting, our team nonetheless provided excellent and compelling coverage of this important news story, with consummate professionalism and dedication, in extremely challenging and high-pressured circumstances. As the local newspaper of record, there were obvious challenges in boiling down a balanced account of such a multi-faceted story - with many competing strands - into a single, coherent and sensitively handled front page that conveyed all elements of a devastating and shocking series of events. Sifting through the countless images from the night on our photographic database, the standout image of the events was that of a burning car with the silhouette of an unidentified person in the foreground. A stark image, we cleared the editorial space on the front page, and stripped our usual front page furniture of any colour with the traditional South Wales Echo red masthead being replaced with plain white text against no background, and a simple headline and subhead, again in plain white text, to provide the greatest possible impact. The edition was very well received locally and has already seen the South Wales Echo being shortlisted for this year’s forthcoming Wales Media Awards in the daily newspaper of the year category - a title it has won and held since 2020.