Law and Ethics Test 1

1. In a recent court case, which attracted a lot of publicity, a father was prosecuted for smacking his three-year old son and convicted of common assault. In all the reporting of the case, the father remained anonymous. Why was that?

First of all, obviously, this is a news story about children and criminal activity which is included in the field of law.

According to BBC Editorial Guidelines the Children section, “the decision to involve, feature or identify children whose parents are engaged in anti-social activity should only be made if the welfare of the child will not be harmed…this is particularly important when children may be at risk.”

That means that identification of children will be unacceptable if which has negative influence on children’s growing up, or if children are living with parents’ violence.

In this piece of news, anonymity of the father is for the sake of his son’s welfare. Because according to Crime & Anti-Social Behaviour section, when reporting crime, “jigsaw effect” should be taken into consideration, which means “separate reports, which could be in different media, give different details of a case which when pieced together, reveal the identity of the person involved”. If audiences get to know name of the father, there is possibility of revealing the son’s identity, which should be avoided.

In a word, when reporting the case with the father anonymous is totally for the good of his son.

2. A British citizen has been taken hostage in a Middle Eastern country. The captors release a distressing video showing the hostage weeping and pleading with the British government to intervene and save their life. How do you think this development should be reported on radio, TV, press and online?

This is a matter of how to report hostage taking issues taking place in terror conditions on different means of media.

According to BBC Editorial Guidelines the War, Terror & Emergencies and Live Output sections, “we need to be sensitive to the emotions and fears of our audience when reporting matters involving risk to and loss of life, as well as human suffering and distress.”

First of all, we will not broadcast the video until “referral to a senior editorial figure”.

I think on radio and TV, the video could be broadcast without editing. For example, all the hostage’s begging and tearing should be broadcast with no need to hide his/her face or voice, partly because audiences should be told the truth, partly because the level of violence or disorder is acceptable. But a text warning at the start of the programme will always be welcomed. And we should well arrange the time when run the programme in order to avoid children audiences.

On press, the news needs to be described objectively and fully by transferring visual pictures to text.

For online reports, besides what has been done on press, we could leave space for readers’ comments, ask for claims from a third party, or link to other website dealing with the same story or related ones.