Ottawa, June 7, 2000 – The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) today released its decision concerning a news report on the removal of two foster children, aged 10 and 12, from their home by the Ministry of Children and Families against their will and that of their foster parents. The item was broadcast by CHAN-TV (BCTV, Vancouver) during its 6:00 p.m. newscast. The B.C. Director of Child Protection complained that “presenting the children on public television was clearly not in their best interests” and that “[v]iolating these children’s privacy rights in order to run a one-sided sensational news report offends against community standards in news reporting.” The B.C. Regional Council considered the complaint under the Radio Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) Code of (Journalistic) Ethics. The Council did not find that the report breached broadcast standards, noting that the story was both in the public interest and accurate. It stated:
This story was not simply a gossipy tale or soap opera-ish in nature. On its face, two adults, with an uncontradicted 36 years as foster parents, were being deprived of the children they had brought up since they were infants. From the report, it appeared incontrovertible that the separation was involuntary. As an additional consideration, the separation was being made to happen merely ten days before the holiday season. In those circumstances, it is difficult to conceive why the story would not have been seen by reasonable persons to be very much in the public interest. Moreover, quite apart from the specifics of the case, the public could be presumed to have a general interest in government mechanisms which would lead to such an apparently iniquitous result.
As to the question of accuracy, there can equally be no doubt that the proclamation by the reporter alone that neither the parents nor the children wished to be separated from each other would never have had the credibility of the “testimony” to that effect given on camera by both the children and the parents.
On the issue of interviewing children, the Council stated:
In the case at hand, the Council is of the view that the children were neither coerced nor misled. To the contrary, there is every indication that the children would have wished that their point of view be a part of the story. Had it not been, there is every reason to believe that the credibility of the report would have been diminished. It was of the essence of the story that the public know that this was not merely the expression of the clash of consents of the adults yearning to retain the children in foster care and those wishing to remove them from such care. It was, after all, the story of the children and their clear desire to remain with their parents. No-one could bear better witness to that story than the children themselves. The Council finds that their consent was validly and appropriately obtained.
The Council also noted that “it is hardly incidental that the authorities were provided with the opportunity to appear on-screen and explain their side of the story” and that they declined that opportunity.
Canada’s private broadcasters have themselves created industry standards in the form of Codes on ethics, gender portrayal and television violence by which they expect the members of their profession will abide. In 1990, they also created the CBSC, which is the self-regulatory body with the responsibility of administering those professional broadcast Codes, as well as the Code dealing with journalistic practices first created by the Radio Television News Directors Association of Canada (RTNDA) in 1970. 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 (###) ###-####.