Blackpool

Let’s call her Nikki shall we?

It was how she was known by her family and how they would like her to be remembered – with a softness and kindness as the “incredible”‘ mum, partner, daughter and sister. Their Nikki, their loved one, the “little ballerina”‘ as her father described her and the victim of a tragic accidental death as an inquest has just concluded – not the public property that the ‘Nicola Bulley story’ became.

When Nikki Bulley first went missing she featured as a press release in the Lancashire Post and Blackpool Gazette inbox from Lancashire Police. Geographically, St Michael’s (and Nikki’s home village Inskip) where she vanished fall on the shared patch for both titles, plus within our local weekly newspaper remit – The Garstang Courier & Longridge News.

Nicola Bulley and dog Willow

At the time we, and other local media published the piece promptly, faithfully and almost word for word online as we would all missing person inquiries, fully expecting a quick follow up assuring us she had been found. We rarely carry these appeals in the newspapers themselves as the subjects are often safely home before our titles hit the streets – online and via social media we can update our readers quickly and they can share information. This time, Nikki didn’t come home.

As always in the newsroom, we read between the lines of the formal release and police-speak. Its issue fairly quickly after she lost contact indicated a vulnerability, a genuine concern for her well-being and feeling that speed was of the essence.

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As journalists – and I’m a former crime reporter – we’ve seen these all too frequently before and they are largely issued for children or the elderly. I personally read it and realised with misgiving that as well as sharing a name and being a similar age, she lived a few miles down the road from me – it was a knowledge that Nikki could be any us that formed the way I, as editor at the time, and we as local journalists, reported on the case – rightly or wrongly.

This was not an attempt at virtue signalling in the eye of this confusing and unprecedented media storm, but it did mean we set our stall out early as ‘facts without speculation’. After all, this is our home patch, we live here, we know the community, and have no desire to misrepresent it – some of the wider team even knew of Nikki and it felt personal as we knew we would still be here after the press pack had left.

Sticking to the facts, providing information and guidance plus supporting the community was our priority but even these issues proved problematic in the face of a rapidly changing story with continually evolving goalposts. But we attempted to steer the information ship as best we could, with continual updates and reporters steering clear of the theorising, as some national outlets and social media became wilder and wilder in the quest for a fresh news headline to trump the rivals.

The first sign the story was more than first appeared was news of a police presence on the River Wyre. Flagged as always on our breaking news group – we put two and two together and realised this could be connected to the missing person inquiry but at this stage it was only local media covered the search.

Within 24 hours the story had blown up, at first nationally, then worldwide – it was then that social media began to have opinions and ask questions. Missing Nikki had resonated with millions; the loving, hard-working, and attractive mum who vanished in an affluent, leafy, village in mysterious circumstances after the school run while walking her much-loved Spaniel – what more could middle England and the world want?

Nikki’s story accelerated across the world as if it was a Netflix series released episode by episode, the audience desperate for the next instalment of the saga and keen to share their theories online. A genuine concern for her whereabouts soured when social media content creators, particularly those trading in theory, mystery and speculation, saw opportunity.

Unlike most UK reporters, who have to pass exams in media law and ethics, the psychics and worst (not all) of the influencers just reported anything they liked with little respect for the grieving family – even seeking to blame them with Nikki’s loving and desperately worried partner Paul Ansell accused of all sorts despite police assurance he was ruled out of any inquiry.

It was an unprecedented deluge of attention for Lancashire Police who, after the first somewhat free-for-all press conference held in a public at a community centre car park, unwittingly invited wolves to the door. They found themselves the target of worldwide criticism and how they handled that is the subject of an independent inquiry – it will be an interesting read when it is published in September.

Without agenda or blame, it was certainly overwhelming for Lancashire Police’s press office. Working locally, I knew they were a small team who were unable to fully cover weekends and evenings, let alone cope with the entire world’s press and more in their inbox.

We knew they must be under intense pressure as we too are few and the attention just unbelievable. When the story went global Nikki’s face was everywhere and the small village of St Michael’s was inundated.

Journalists, gawkers, bloggers and TikTokers lined the streets of the quiet village and gradually residents’ attitudes toward the invaders moved from tolerance to, in some cases, open anger as we realised when a young reporter was barracked in the streets and reluctant to return. The small, friendly and leafy, village in between Preston and Blackpool had become a tense place to be.

We, as a local news brand and as human beings, were torn. We were part of the problem as press but had to stick to our guns with the mission to report responsibly from what was our own patch. Meanwhile the world vilified the media while, without any sign of irony, demanding every last bit of information on the moving inquiry.

It was then we became part of the story too as national outlets desperate for our input and local knowledge began asking for interviews. At first I was unsure – were we helping or making it worse? But we realised we could also keep the story straight and represent Lancashire until Nikki was found.

In a week I personally had more than 60 media requests for radio and television appearances and I felt like I was performing reputation management on behalf of the county – but we had promised we would help spread facts without speculation to help find Nicola and I stuck to that where I could.

I was asked repeatedly – did I blame the police inquiry? I replied repeatedly, there were questions to be asked but the time was not while a mum of two was missing. In fact, during my time in St Michaels, I heard no-one from within St Michaels blame the police – instead reports of kindness and care and welfare checks were the narrative inside the village.

The police itself were openly supported by Nikki’s family, who put their vulnerable selves in the spotlight as the investigation progressed. But then you would, wouldn’t you – if a loved one was missing – do anything to find them?

Meanwhile my team was struggling under the glare of every amateur conspiracy theorist this side of the moon. Targeted online, often personally, they were incredibly professional in the face of intense attention and made me very proud.

I’m still muting largely anonymous conspiracists and trolls every day and have not watched the online videos published about me and don’t plan to. Just one particularly sick individual had to be reported to police – it emerged he was targeting Nikki’s family, friends and neighbours also and his warped communications stopped after Nikki was found. I’m not surprised her family asked for the speculation to stop during the post-inquest statement – it never ends.

So every day we just reported any new facts, updates to timelines, police appeals for information, plus we reported from the under-fire community in St Michaels who absolutely outdid themselves, organising searches, supporting local schoolchildren as it was clear early on this was trauma on a huge scale on several levels.

They rallied around Nikki’s family who were targeted in person and online, they were remarkable and they were resilient despite reports of TikTokers trespassing in private gardens, frightening the elderly and even planting ‘evidence’ for content purposes.

Then Nikki was found. Grief replaced hope and with it anger, culminating in a remarkable ‘blame game’ of a press conference, which no doubt be addressed in the independent inquiry. Now with the culmination of the inquest, itself an unprecedented event under high security and world scrutiny, we finally know what really happened and it was a tragic accident – let’s hope the conspiracy theorists move on. Nikki’s family deserves the time to heal they have asked for.

Nicola Adam was Editor of Lancashire Post and Blackpool Gazette during the Nicola Bulley police investigation.

References

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