Ottawa, January 8, 1999 – The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) today released its decision concerning a news report on a Toronto subway murder which aired on the 6 p.m. newscast of Vancouver’s CHAN-TV (BCTV). A viewer complained of the inclusion in that report of “a close view of the dying but still partly conscious woman’s bloodstained face”.
The B.C. Regional Council considered the complaint under the Voluntary Code Regarding Violence in Television Programming of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) and the Code of (Journalistic) Ethics of the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA). The Council found that, by including a video shot of the lacerated and bloody face of the victim, BCTV unnecessarily depicted the violence associated with that tragedy, contrary to the provisions of the Violence Code.
While ... the B.C. Regional Council accepts that the news story was inherently violent and that some pictorial representation of the violence that occurred may have been acceptable, it finds that the shot of the victim’s face as she lay dying on the paramedics’ gurney was utterly unnecessary to the story. It added no clarification of any of the issues, no expository value to the sad tale, and no information which the viewer required to understand the series of events. The additional depiction could only have been calculated to make a viewer cringe or, at least, feel discomfited.
In addition, the Council found that “the inclusion of a close-up of the lacerated and bloody face of the victim in the last moments of her life in the report failed to respect the dignity of the victim” as required by the RTNDA Code of (Journalistic) Ethics.”
In the Council’s view, there is a distinction to be made with respect to showing other less readily identifiable parts of a person’s body, such as arms, legs, torso, etc. and showing the victim’s face. It is not so much an issue of the identification of the individual (especially in this case where the victim had been named) as it is an issue of identification of pain, agony, distress, even distortion of the individual, in short, an affront to the dignity, if not the privacy, of the victim and her family and friends.
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 (###) ###-####.