BBC to delay sensitive news coverage

Good to have the forum back - what went wrong?

Anyhow, reposted from Digital Spy Forums a few days ago:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4121406.stm

The BBC is to put a time-delay on covering sensitive news events to avoid "distressing, upsetting images"

It highlights the Beslan school siege and September 11th as high profile example.


I'm disgusted at this - these events are distressing and upsetting and shouldn't be censored.


The licence fee payer has the right to see the reality of the news, not a clean-up child-friendly version. While broadcasters have responsibilities, one of their biggest responsibilities is to tell things as they are!


What next - the Six o'clock News only filled with good news stories?

It's rediculous. Imagine when an event like September 11 happens (God forbid), News 24 and World are going to lose a heck of a lot of viewers. I'll be staying with Sky News!

Although I can understand the BBC new policy, it does rasie some important questions, Exactly how much will this "news" be censored.
O.K. so a ten second delay may not seem much, but where/ if at all is this policy enforced and who enforces it.

Mixed thoughts on this. I think I'll truly reserve judgement until I see the policy in action...

I'm sure it would be more than a 10 second delay - after all, they'd need to vet the feed, then edit out any unsuitable coverage, then ensure that they had enough of a delay after the edit.

Unless they just use the delay in order to quickly cut back to the studio over the footage - although being N24, their studio discussions can get quite tedious at times, and at the best of times their presenters aren't that good at handling breaking news coverage.

I'll now retreat to my corner after that controversial comment.

We are only talking of a few seconds delay and only in certain circumstances. It's also not that new, it's happened before - just it's been written into the new Editorial Guidelines ... which for the first time anyone can read at www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines (and indeed Sky I know have said that producers can do it if they wish). The problem is do you want to see say for example lots of dead bodies of children, or indeed a child being blown up - in other words someone's death live on TV ... surely that person has a right for their death not to be shown around the world. Imagine if it were your child - say a siege at a local school and you saw people blown up. That's the reason for the guideline - it's not really a censorship thing.

Sounds like they're running scared after Hutton, they've lost their nerve!

I honestly don't know how you can contect the two - Hutton and a small delay on hostage/siege/terror situations. Read the guideline.

I just keep thinking of what Mark Byford said post-Hutton inquiry. What he was trying to say more or less was that first isn't always best and the BBC should be accurate. This is true but there is a timid approach about BBC News now and they miss out on a few scoops. Yes BBC News won a BAFTA for its excellent coverage of the Madrid bombings on the 10 O'Clock News, but on things like the Beslan siege they were way behind ITN on terrestrial television. I know it's only a few seconds delay and perhaps we won't notice the difference just like when a delay is used on commercial radio.

The thing is when news breaks it should be immediate, the important decisions are made editorially, which correspondent will cover it what angles will be covered? Things like that.

This issue particularly came to the fore with Sept 11th and the telephoto shots of people jumping out of the buildings, particularly one man in a white shirt that was very prominent.
It's a difficult issue all right - not sure I'd like my death shown around the world like that either.
It's very much so a case of having respect for the persons involved rather than 'protecting' the viewer I think - the viewer by and large knows what to expect watching any major story like that, and can also be warned if necessary by the newsreader.

It's interesting that this policy is coming out now - is it in reaction to the events that have happened, or the fact that the BBC is treating it as inevitable that terrorist events are going to feature more and more in our lives in the future?!!

This is my case in point of BBC News being incredibly slow. I've just read on Teletext that 9 million watched Murray's exit from Wimbledon, this came from a BBC spokesman. And on Ceefax I see nothing!! If they're slow with their own news what will they be like with other stories?

Every news channel has had the ability to delay live footage for years, and they have been.

Delaying live footage is nothing new. BBC, Sky, ITV, CNN, etc etc. They all do it, and none of you are none the wiser.

Well from what I saw on the ITV NC on the Beslan school siege last september, I can assure you from some of the images that were shown that they didn't - after all, people need to know the reality of world issues, that's what the news is for.