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BBC alters Syria report on grounds of “taste and decency”
Monday, May 18, 2015 1:19
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After one hundred and eleven working days I have today received a response to my stage 1b complaint regarding the substitution of footage between two transmissions of an August 2014 edition of Newsnight.
The BBC’s reply, posted here, states:
The pictures used on Newsnight on BBC TWO were more graphic and as the programme is shown after the watershed to UK audiences that is within audience expectations.However as the version going out on the BBC News Channel is also broadcast around the world on BBC World News we have to be more careful in terms of taste and decency to our audience elsewhere in different time zones.We would also re-iterate the point we made in our first response that the change of pictures did not change the journalistic integrity of the piece so we feel it is editorially justified and in line with BBC editorial guidelines.
As suggested in discussion on the Media Lens Message Board here, this explanation appears to give the BBC News Channel carte blanche to broadcast, without any acknowledgement, inauthentic images in accompaniment to any domestic BBC report originally broadcast post-watershed and deemed to have breached unspecified standards of “taste and decency”. (The search box on the BBC Editorial Guidelines webpages turns up no results for either term).
It is noteworthy that, as demonstrated by this screengrab, the edition of Newsnight in question was deemed tasteful and decent enough to be posted on iPlayer for seven days without a parental guidance flag for those later accessing it pre-watershed.
Robert Stuart
Philosophers stone – selected views from the boat
http://philosophers-stone.co.uk
Source: http://philosophers-stone.co.uk/wordpress/2015/05/bbc-alters-syria-report-on-grounds-of-taste-and-decency/
