While broadcasting Goliaths such as Sky News and ITN have flown in big-name presenters to riot-stricken cities across England, a couple of Sikh men armed with a point-and-shoot camera have stolen the headlines.

Sangat TV (sangattelevision.org or Sky channel 847), a four-man operation in a makeshift newsroom in Edgbaston, Birmingham, has had a good riot. Its guerrilla journalism – mostly broadcast live using a handheld camera – has been rebroadcast by CNN, the BBC and media outlets in India.

Ranbir Singh Attwal, the 50-year-old community leader behind the channel, is ecstatic. "We've done coverage before but only small events in the local Sikh community," he says.

At times erratic and unpredictable, Sangat TV is still captivating. Its most jaw-dropping moment was on Tuesday night, while it filmed from a car a police pursuit of young rioters down a Birmingham backstreet. With police lagging far behind, Sangat presenter Upinder Randhawa shouted to the officers: "Do you need a lift? We'll give you a lift. Get in the car."

Twenty seconds later the rioters were arrested. "Another live Sangat TV exclusive", Randhawa told his audience. Hours earlier, he had been close to tears on air while filming a group of distraught Muslim men who had learned about the death of their friend.

Launched in September 2010, Sangat scrapes by on donations from the family and friends of three Sangat Trust directors who own the channel. Its mission is to "spread peace, defend our faiths and educate people", says Attwal. "It's about informing people and then all joining together against the criminal element. The whole community can outnumber any bad or evil – even if the gangsters outnumber the police. You can only win people with love."

Other gonzo outlets have also proved formidable rivals to the traditional TV news. A hyperlocal news site set up by Brunel MA student Gaz Corfield attracted more than 1m views by collating reports of unrest. The University of Birmingham's student newspaper, Redbrick, had unpaid reporters roving the city's streets for stories. While on Twitter, Andy Carvin, the NPR strategist who became known as "the man who tweeted the revolution" for his coverage of the Arab springs protests, pointed his 50,000 followers to tweets from the corners of London untouched by national broadcasters. As Mark Evans, home news editor of Sky News, testified on Tuesday: "You could actually turn off your TV and get as good a picture of what was happening just on Twitter".