BBC editorial guidelines: a model for newspapers?

Posted by Bertrand Pecquerie on June 24, 2005 at 6:37 PM

As usual, BBC is in advance on ethics reflexion and a lot of newspapers could use some of these guidelines (if you replace videos by photos in the text)! According to BBC News, "Live coverage of sensitive news events such as the Beslan school siege could be broadcast on the BBC in future with a time delay. The policy is set out in BBC Editorial Guidelines coming into effect in July 2005. Caution over showing sensitive footage is not new at the corporation but it is the first time a delay has explicitly been written into guidelines. There is also a written commitment that "accuracy is more important than speed" in breaking news.

The Editorial Guidelines will replace the BBC Producers' Guidelines which have been revised to reflect Ofcom's new broadcasting code and the "changing media environment". "The guidelines are part of our contract with our audiences," said Stephen Whittle, BBC Controller of Editorial Policy.

One of the new BBC directives states a delay "must be installed when broadcasting live coverage of sensitive and challenging events".

The new set of guidelines has 197 pages

The delay - the length of which will be left to the discretion of the editor in charge - would allow time to exclude any potential material.

"The purpose is to avoid really distressing, upsetting images that our viewers might not want to see going straight out," a BBC spokeswoman said.

The BBC's television and radio content now needs to comply with the Ofcom Broadcasting Code in six key areas: Protecting the Under Eighteens; Harm and Offence; Crime; Religion; Fairness and Privacy.

Revisions were made to the BBC's Producers' Guidelines following recommendations made in the Neil report into editorial issues raised by the Hutton Inquiry. But the last formal update was in 2000...

Other key changes include:

- A requirement that the use of secret recording in a BBC investigation must be kept under constant review.

- New advice on BBC investigations into crime and serious anti-social behaviour, which must be clearly editorially justified.

- A suggestion the BBC should normally consider asking contributors to sign contracts - including a declaration of personal information such as criminal convictions or that which may involve personal conflicts of interest."

Source: BBC News. See also the BBC editorial guidelines.