Ottawa, May 12, 1994 – In its decision released today, the Ontario Regional Council of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) announced that CJSB (Ottawa) failed to respect one of the conditions of its membership in the Council.
The Council had received a complaint concerning a segment involving a character named “D. Vinnie Boobazonga.” A CJSB listener wrote that the character promoted sexist attitudes towards women, invoked homophobia and promoted anti-homosexual violence. The station General Manager responded by explaining that the character clearly reflected outdated attitudes, but that, in airing such material, the station hoped to raise awareness of intolerant attitudes.
In most cases, the Council looks to relevant industry Codes in order to decide on complaints. With this program, the Council would have considered the Sex-Role Portrayal Code and the Code of Ethics of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. When the Council requested tapes of the segment, however, CJSB informed the Council that the tapes had been lost. Therefore, the Council decided that CJSB had breached one of its responsibilities of membership in the CBSC, namely, to retain tapes of programs that are the subject of complaints. As a result, CJSB must announce the Council’s decision during peak listening hours, within 30 days.
The CBSC Ontario Regional Council includes representatives of the general public and of the broadcasting industry. The Chair of the Regional Council is a public member, Marianne Barrie, while the Vice-Chair, a broadcaster, is Al MacKay. Other public representatives on the Regional Council are Susan Fish and Robert Stanbury; Paul Fockler and Don Luzzi (who did not participate the decision) are the other broadcaster representatives.
The CBSC was created by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) in 1990, to provide private sector broadcasters with a mechanism of self-regulation. In addition to administering the CAB’s Sex-Role Portrayal Code and the Code of Ethics, the CBSC administers the Voluntary Code Regarding Violence in Television Programming. It also recently began administering the Code of Ethics of the Radio Television News Directors Association.
The decision is attached.
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For more information, please contact the National Chair of the CBSC, Ronald I. Cohen, at (###) ###-####.