Ottawa, August 19, 1999 – The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) today released two decisions concerning broadcasts of the public affairs programs J.E. and J.E. en direct on CFMT-TV (TVA). The decision regarding J.E. concerns a report about a real estate deal to sell a presbytery gone sour. The complaint came from the Parish in question in the report. They alleged that the report was biased and unfair. The Quebec Regional Council disagreed.
In the Council’s view, the voluminous correspondence from the complainant principally reveals concerns with J.E.’s choice of story to tell, i.e. J.E.’s focus on the issue of the belief of the potential purchasers that they had bought the presbytery contrasted with their discovery that they did not have an executable contract. The choice of J.E.'s focus on what, in some senses, was a complex ancient legal issue involving the rationale of a strict (and, some might say, anachronistic) principle versus a more comprehensible and modern equitable approach to the problem necessitated their “simplification” of the story in order to explain why the couple in question thought that they had indeed succeeded in their goal, namely, the purchase of the presbytery from the fabrique. That the broadcaster did not include all of the facts and facets of the case does not lead inexorably to the conclusion that the report was inaccurate. In the Council’s view, such comprehensiveness in news and public affairs reports is not required, nor even reasonable in all cases, particularly when one takes into account the limited time available in which to bring any matter to the small screen. While such a limitation never entitles a broadcaster to be misleading, it does entitle it to simplify or telescope a report in a fair and reasonable way to fit the constraints of the medium.
In its second decision released today, this one concerning J.E. en direct, the Quebec Regional Council dealt with a report on alternative medicine which included hidden camera-generated video footage of a consultation with a homeopath (taken by a journalist posing as a patient) and interviews with a dissatisfied alternative medicine recipient and the heads of various alternative and traditional medicine associations. The complainant claimed that the report was biased against alternative medicine. While the Council found no problem whatsoever with the substance of the report, including the use of deceptive journalistic practices in obtaining some of the report’s content, it did find that the hosts of the show demonstrated an unusually “aggressive and mocking behaviour” towards one of their guests, treating him in a hostile manner inconsistent with broadcast journalistic standards. The Council stated:
Even if provoked, [journalists] need to be able to stand back from the fray. They can test, they can challenge, they can contradict, but they ought not to mud-wrestle. The Council is of the view that remarks such as “[translation] Come down off your high horse and let’s talk frankly, you and I”, “[translation] No, no, you said nothing before - answer the question” and “[translation] This isn’t Nagano, take off your skates and answer my questions”, etc., were neither proper nor fair coming from a veteran and well-respected broadcast journalist. By attacking and mocking their guest thus, Mr. Girouard and Ms. Cazin “showed their colours”, so to speak, in a way which violated Article 2 of the RTNDA Code ... and Clause 6 of the CAB Code of Ethics.
Canada’s private broadcasters have created industry standards in the form of Codes on ethics, gender portrayal and television violence by which they expect their members will abide. They also created the CBSC, which is the self-regulatory body with the responsibility of administering those Codes, as well as the Code dealing with journalistic practices created by the Radio Television News Directors Association Canada (RTNDA). More than 430 radio and television stations and specialty services from across Canada are members of the Council.
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All CBSC decisions, Codes, links to members’ and other web sites, and related information are available on the World Wide Web at www.cbsc.ca. For more information, please contact the National Chair of the CBSC, Ron Cohen, at (###) ###-####.