Ottawa, February 12, 1999 – The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) today released its decision concerning a CHBC-TV (Kelowna) evening news report about a double homicide that took place in Vernon, B.C. The report included an interview with a 16-year-old neighbour, which sparked a complaint from her parents. The complainants stated that the interview should not have been broadcast because, on the one hand, parental consent had not been obtained and, on the other, because the daughter had allegedly urged the reporter “not to put [the interview] on t.v.” The complainants also took issue with the very reporting of the double homicide story.
The B.C. Regional Council considered the complaint under the Codes of Ethics of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) and the Radio Television News Directors Association (RTNDA). It found no Code violation. Recognizing “the interest of the broadcaster in visiting the area of the murders and in trying to provide for its viewers as much information as possible from persons with knowledge of the crime or the individual victims or perpetrators”, the Council did not find that the broadcaster acted wrongly in obtaining and broadcasting the interview in question.
On the factual level, the Council considers that the daughter was always in a position to give or withhold her consent. She knew that she was being recorded. She was always inside the door of her house while the interviewer was outside. She could have ended the interview at any time by closing the door. There is no indication whatsoever in the video footage used in the news report that she was coerced. The Council readily concedes that she was probably inexperienced but this does not, in the Council's view, render her any different than most non-public figures of any age who are interviewed by the press. While some of the questioning was leading, that issue was not age-related. Nor, in the view of the Council, was the interviewee in any way compromised thereby.
The B.C. Regional Council also found “no fault with the broadcaster’s construction of its report.” The Council stated that “while the construction of the report may have been disturbing to the complainant given the daughter’s comments, that alone does not lead to a conclusion that a breach has occurred.”
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 (###) ###-####.