RTNDA Code of (Journalistic) Ethics

Commentary Re Article 1: Accuracy

In CFTO-TV re News (Sexual Assault) (CBSC Decision 93/94-0215, June 22, 1994), a woman claimed that the reporting of proceedings against a doctor who had allegedly assaulted her sexually was inaccurate and unbalanced. The Ontario Regional Panel disagreed.

As to [...] the question of balance, the Regional Panel noted that the first newscast covered the complainant’s version of affairs and the second, to some extent, the doctor’s. It is clear that, on the November 24 broadcast, there is not a word on behalf of the doctor. In the second newscast, on November 25, while there are words reporting the perspective favouring the doctor from certain witnesses and the doctor’s lawyer, equal weight is given to the complainant’s lawyer and she herself was again on air, this time rebutting the doctor’s lawyer’s contention. The Panel had no hesitation in deciding that, when weighed together, the reporting of the incident over the two days was balanced and fair.

Furthermore, the Panel noted that it had been clearly stated and repeated that the doctor had been guilty of sexual misconduct and was now awaiting punishment. If anything, the first broadcast had accorded no weight to the doctor’s position at all. The complainant had been interviewed on both broadcasts and had been allowed to state her concerns and to enunciate her perspective.

Finally, on this issue, the Panel agreed with the CFTO Vice-President on the following point. No broadcaster can be expected to cover every aspect raised in the course of a hearing or other newsworthy event. Broadcasters must be selective in juggling the limited time available to them to report on all the events of the day which call out to be brought to the attention of the public.

In CTV re W5 (“Lawn Wars”)(CBSC Decision 95/96-0187, October 21, 1996), the Ontario Regional Panel found that, by dealing with a dispute between neighbours flippantly and failing to consider, even briefly, the significant social and financial implications of the story, W5 had not provided the “accurate, comprehensive and balanced” presentation of the subject required by Article 1. The Panel emphasized that it was not in the choice of story to tell that the broadcaster had erred; rather, in the Panel’s view, it was “because of the way this story was handled”. The Panel stated:

While the Panel strongly agrees with CTV’s Vice President that, in general, a citizen cannot force a particular story to be told or insist that a particular perspective on a story be taken, it does not agree with his application of the general principle to this case. [...]

The CBSC’s disagreement with the broadcaster flows from the fact that the Panel members do not consider that the segment was, as represented by CTV’s Vice President, “a quite simple story”. It is the broadcaster which so characterized “Lawn Wars” because it chose to tell the story that way when, in reality, the story had a far more serious side to it. It is the broadcaster which chose to tell the story flippantly, although invited not to do so. While there is a side to the story which is undeniably amusing, there is surely a serious dollars and cents issue, one which the complainant described in the following way in her letter: “I told the producers this story but I also told them the bottom line for me was a market value issue.” Distilling complex issues into understandable elements for their audiences is a daily fact of life for broadcast journalists; however, simplifying a story and trivializing a story are two very different acts.

While the refusal of W5 to deal with the “market value issue” was, as the broadcaster admits, “a subjective choice”, the Panel does not believe that it was a fair and proper choice. The segment could certainly have focussed, as it did, on the light side of the issue, while being prepared with some attention to the financial and social component of the neighbourhood problem. The total elimination of that element resulted in the conversion of a matter with a serious aspect into a buffoonish tale. It was W5’s choice to do the story or not, but, in telling it the way it did, it used its enormous national credibility as a leading public affairs program to unfairly denigrate the complainant’s very real and substantive concerns. It stepped outside of its own serious journalistic tradition to marginalize the concerns of the complainant, to trivialize what for her was a serious predicament and, in the view of the Panel, to make her look foolish.

Regarding the treatment of events of importance in a “balanced manner”, the Panel stated:

When the Panel refers to balance, it is not referring to the reportage of evolving stories or events of a fixed duration such as an election campaign, where issues of balance and comprehensiveness can be judged over time, with the expectation that, over the course of the extended coverage, most if not all points of view connected with the issue will be addressed. In this particular instance, it was clear there would be no additional report. Consequently, the Panel believes that the responsibility of the broadcaster to ensure balance and comprehensiveness, as expressed in Article 1 of the RTNDA Code of (Journalistic) Ethics, would, if anything, be slightly greater on the basis that this was a stand-alone item.

The complaint in CHAN-TV re Newscast (Recycling Society) (CBSC Decision 96/97-0004, March 10, 1997) involved two newscasts about a not-for-profit organization. In the first, the broadcaster interviewed one of the two signatories to a memo alleging abuses on the part of the Society, on the one hand, and a Society official, on the other. The newscast in question dealt mainly with the treatment of handicapped employees working there. The second newscast focussed principally on questions of financial mismanagement; the reporter interviewed another official and discussed society finances, suggesting that there were some financial irregularities relating, among other things, to the salaries paid to staff and the sources of the organization’s funds. Overall, in the complainant’s view, the coverage was malicious, one-sided and destructive. The British Columbia Regional Panel concluded that, while the reporting did not “meet the standards of telling the story fairly, comprehensively and accurately”, it did not breach the industry’s Codes on ethics and journalistic practices. The Panel concluded that “the newscasts in question were not in breach of the Code provisions cited above but that, in some respects [...] they were only on the edge of acceptability.”

[I]t was the duty of the station to ensure that it had all the information it required to tell its story fairly, comprehensively and accurately, particularly as it chose its own interviewees. In this respect, the Panel considers that the station and its reporter did not succeed in all respects in meeting those standards although it does not believe that the breach was such as to constitute a breach of the Code. The Panel is of the view that the reporter’s principal failure was with respect to the financial issues raised in the newscasts. There is, for example, a difference between “grants” and “contracts for services rendered”. The Panel does not agree with the broadcaster’s justification of the one term for the other as a “break[ing] out of jargon to properly and directly convey meaning”. The word “grant” is not jargon. It has a well-known meaning and an implication of government largesse. It provides an inherent justification for cautious oversight of the activities of an entity benefiting from such beneficence. It appears, on the other hand, that the Society worked for its money, that it rendered services for which it was paid. That does not imply that it can do what it wants; the investigation was not unwarranted. The reporter ought, however, to have been “tighter” in his choice of language. Words are, after all, his work.

[...]

[The reporter] then made the sarcastic and apparently unwarranted comment that the wages of the “administrative staff” rose by “12%, which apparently translates to 2%”. It appears to the Panel that the reporter was reading a line item in a budget and extrapolating from this a conclusion that each administrative wage may have risen by an average of 12% rather than that the overall administrative wage pot may have increased by that amount, which is essentially the information conveyed both by the Executive Director in her interview and in the letter she provided.

It is, of course, eminently material that she was given the opportunity to be on the record and to present her point of view but, in viewing and re-viewing the tape, Panel members believe that the waters were muddied by the reporter in the confused and unnecessarily sarcastic way he chose to introduce the item.

All in all, the Panel considers that the reporter, the News Director and the station ought to have exercised greater vigilance in the way they chose to tell this story which they were justified in bringing to the attention of the public. It is not, and cannot be, that every inadvertence or inappropriate comment will fall afoul of the various broadcaster Codes. This is a case where they do not but where the Panel would have wished that the broadcaster had been further from the edge.

The Council again dealt with the issue of accuracy of terminology in CITV-TV re “You Paid For It!” (Immigration) (CBSC Decision 95/96-0088, December 16, 1997). In that decision, the Prairie Regional Panel found that the broadcaster had failed to make the material distinction between immigrants and refugees in a report which required such a distinction to be made. It found that this inaccuracy went beyond a mere lack of “tightness” as in the CHAN-TV newscast.

The Panel notes that, throughout the report, newcomers to Canada were referred to most often by the designation “these people” or “them”. The word “immigrants” is used sparsely and the word “refugees” was not used at all in either the 6 or 10 p.m. broadcasts of the report. There is, however, no doubt that some of the comments made by the Reform Party M.P. were directed specifically at refugees. He states that “these are the ones who are sponsored by the government of Canada.” In the Panel’s understanding, “sponsoring” refers to the various categories of refugees, not to “immigrants” to Canada.

[...]

In this case, the Panel considers that CITV’s failure goes further than merely lacking “tightness”. The report on the issue of government spending in the area of immigration confused money spent on immigrants, i.e. foreigners who are accepted into Canada in the hopes that they will spur economic growth for the country, with money spent on refugees, i.e. people who are accepted into Canada out of humanitarian compassion. The confusion of money spent with respect to both groups in the context of the statement that a treasury critic “doesn’t believe that many of the bills paid by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration are paying off” was grossly misleading and had the overall effect of portraying all newcomers to Canada are “free-loaders”.

The Panel noted that the issue was “an evocative, if not a provocative one, for the audience” and that the “serious inaccuracies contained in the report [...] combined with the reporter’s overall tone, created an unfair, unbalanced and inaccurate report” which “preyed on the negative feelings which some Canadians have towards immigrants”. The Panel concluded that, by airing this report, the broadcaster had breached the RTNDA Code.

In CFCN-TV re “Consumer Watch” (Travel Agency) (CBSC Decision 95/96-0240, December 16, 1997), the president of a discount travel agency targeted by “Consumer Watch” reports complained that the reports did not give “the other side of the issues.” In finding no breach of the Code, the Panel made the following comments on the fairness and balance requirement of the RTNDA Code:

It appears to the Panel that the complainant, in alleging that the story should have included “the other side of the issues”, considers that the fairness and balance requirement for news reports means that negative comments about a company must be balanced by positive comments. The Panel disagrees. Were the complainant’s view correct, there could never be a negative or critical news report. At the end of the day, it is the reporting of the newsworthy event which must be evaluated for its objectivity and fairness and not the overall effect of the news report on the person or company who is its subject [...]

In this case, the story was about the complaints received about Platinum Passports. While the requirement to be fair and objective may have required that a response from the company targeted by the report be sought, there certainly exists no obligation on behalf of the newscaster to find positive comments to say about the company to counter-balance the reporting of the complaints.

While Article 1 requires that the public be informed in an “accurate” manner, an erroneous statement, especially when inadvertent and insignificant, will not automatically amount to a breach of the Code. (For more information on the issue of errors, see the discussion under Article 7, headed “Corrections”.) In CITY-TV re CityPulse (Neighbourhood Drug Bust) (CBSC Decision 96/97-0216, February 20, 1998), the Ontario Regional Panel found that an error as to the location of a drug bust did not amount to a breach of the Codes.

The CBSC has previously accepted that a report may even, in circumstances, not “meet the standards of telling the story fairly, comprehensively and accurately” while not amounting to a breach of the Codes. In CHAN-TV re Newscast (Recycling Society) (CBSC Decision 96/97-0004, March 10, 1997), the British Columbia Regional Panel found that “the newscasts in question were not in breach of the Code provisions cited above but that, in some respects [...] they were only on the edge of acceptability.” In concluding that the broadcaster had not breached the Codes in that case, the B.C. Panel stated “[i]t is not, and cannot be, that every inadvertence or inappropriate comment will fall afoul of the various broadcaster Codes.”

[...]

The Ontario Regional Panel considers, in this case, that the generalized statement that the drug bust had occurred in Parkdale, as opposed to the West End of Toronto, was made inadvertently and that the inaccuracy is not so significant as to constitute a breach of the above-cited provisions of the Codes. Moreover, the Panel notes that the broadcaster corrected its report in order to present the facts accurately in the very next newscast. While the Panel recognizes that this mis-identification was the crucial issue to the complainant, it is of the view that the steps taken by the broadcaster to virtually instantly put the matter right were sufficient to avoid a conclusion of broadcaster Code breach.

In CIII-TV (Global Television) re First National News (Premiers’ Conference) (CBSC Decision 96/97-0246, February 26, 1998), the Ontario Regional Panel found that improper editing of a statement made by Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard constituted a breach of both the CAB and RTNDA Codes of Ethics. The story in question reported on the provincial Premiers’ discussion projecting the holding of another meeting on national unity (in Calgary) and included a clip of Premier Bouchard saying “It’s doomed before it begins.” The complainant had seen a more complete report on another station in which Newfoundland Premier Brian Tobin was shown remarking that, in the last federal election, 65% of Quebeckers had voted for federalist parties. It was in response to this statement that Premier Bouchard had replied: “If you think that 65% of Quebeckers are federalists, it’s doomed before it begins.” It was the contention of the broadcaster that “whether you use his sound-bite from the beginning or the middle, it is clear that his words mean the same thing, that any constitutional process undertaken by the federalists is doomed to fail.” The Panel disagreed.

While the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the Radio and Television News Directors Association have not used identical wording to describe the purpose of the news, the message of both associations is essentially identical. The CAB requires that “news shall be represented with accuracy and without bias” and the RTNDA that the public shall be informed “in an accurate, comprehensive and balanced manner about events of importance.” The CAB Code also mandates that broadcasters shall “ensure that news broadcasts are not editorial” and the RTNDA Code that broadcasters “will in no way distort the news”. There is no conflict between the two Codes; they basically use different phraseology to establish the fundamental principles of news reporting which, at bottom, is nicely put in the following CAB Code sentence:

The fundamental purpose of news dissemination in a democracy is to enable people to know what is happening, and to understand events so that they may form their own conclusions.

In the view of the Ontario Regional Panel, the choice made by Global Television in the news report at hand fails that test. Whatever one’s view of Premier Bouchard’s attitude toward national unity, a news report ought not to distort his words to make them reflect a reporter’s or News Director’s view of Bouchard’s political position. The people, as the Code provides, should be entitled “to know what is happening” in order that “they may form their own conclusions.” By removing the first part of the Premier’s sentence “If you enter into this new process, which is not substantial process, new process, with the idea that 65 per cent of Quebeckers are federalists,” Global has not told the audience what was in fact happening. By leaving only “it’s doomed before it begins,” Global has usurped the audience’s democratic entitlement to reach its own conclusions. Its editing, not merely of an interview, but of a single sentence, has had the effect of distorting the meaning of the Premier’s statement as well as breaching the requirement to provide a “full, fair and proper presentation of [the] news.” In effect, Global took a statement Premier Bouchard had made for one purpose, namely, to comment on the view that 65% of Quebeckers had voted for federalist parties in the last election, and used it for another, namely, to conclude that any proposed Premiers’ conference on national unity would be doomed to failure.

In CHEK-TV re Newscast (CBSC Decision 97/98-0500 and 0543, May 20, 1998), the Panel ruled that balance and comprehensiveness are not synonymous with “fairness”. In that case, the B.C. Regional Panel dealt with a report on the plight of a shopping mall Santa who had been fired from his position after scolding a child who had apparently kicked him in the groin. The report in question followed up on Santa’s firing by visiting him at his new job in another shopping mall. The interview clip used in the report showed Santa crossing his hands over his groin and saying: “No, I’m not going to hold my jangles.” As a result of this report, the Santa was fired from his second job. He complained that the report had been “unfair”.

The issue for the B.C. Regional Panel cannot be fairness or generosity, as stated by the Complainant. There is not, as he states, “a responsibility to ensure that when editing is done that they bend over backwards to be fair.” [...] There are narrow circumstances, relating primarily if not solely to the reporting of criminal activities such as hostage-takings, in which it is a broadcaster’s duty not to report events in such a way as to exacerbate a problem which may result in physical injury or death. Such a principle does not extend to a non-criminal area of reporting as is at hand in this case.

[...] The duty of the Panel must be to assess, as Article One of the RTNDA Code of Ethics requires, whether the broadcaster’s duty to “inform the public in an accurate, comprehensive and balanced manner” has been met. Thus, a reporter cannot, as the same paragraph of the complainant’s letter says, “take something out of context” or “present as fact something that is not true.” These things cannot, the Panel agrees, be done in general, nor, in their view, were they done in this case.

[...]

While the reporter might have chosen to steer the story in a direction which would not have shown the Mall Santa covering his groin, she was not obliged, by any set of standards, to do so. It was, after all, Mr. Turner who chose to cover his crotch; there is no allegation that anyone else invited him to do so. In his letter of December 23, he acknowledges his own naïveté in doing so. His decision to do so in the presence of news cameras was certainly injudicious since he alone opened himself to the risk that such footage could be recorded and used. [...]

On the question of the reporter’s choice of words, namely, “grabbed his crotch” rather than “covered his crotch”, the Panel again found no wrong-doing. The Panel stated that it “does not find that the choice of the second phrase would have materially affected the story. What impacts upon the viewer are the visuals, which speak for themselves.”

In TVA re J.E. (Report on HMS 90) (CBSC Decision 97/98-0472, August 14, 1998), the Quebec Regional Panel dealt with a report on exaggerated claims made by some independent distributors of a food supplement known as HMS 90. The report was broadcast as part of TVA’s public affairs program, J.E. A viewer, also a distributor of the product, complained that the report, among other things, was unfair and cast doubt over all distributors of the product. The Panel found no breach of either Code but did note that J.E. had omitted to identify a leaflet shown in the report, and “that the omission of minimal identification of the document in question constitutes careless, if not shoddy journalism at best, and, by one possible interpretation of motive, misleading journalism at worst”.

In TVA re J.E. (Entreprises Pendragon) (CBSC Decision 97/98-0390, August 14, 1998), the Quebec Regional Panel found that a report contained in the public affairs program J.E. had failed to present the news with accuracy and fairness. Moreover, it found that the inaccuracies had the overall effect of sensationalizing the story. While the Panel considered that the report was structured so as to be fair and balanced, it also found that a “gross miscalculation on the reporter’s part created inherent unfairness in the report.”

The reporter attempted to calculate “a conservative estimate” of the amount of money Pendragon could have collected from local small businesses in its failed attempt to publish a visitor’s guide. He stated (and the numbers were put up on the screen) that, if 180 clients each paid the minimum of $200, Pendragon should have collected $360,000. While the Panel understands that the addition of the extra zero (making the relatively small sum of $36,000 the rather huge sum of $360,000) may have been inadvertent, it was a reckless error on a centrally material issue in the report. Moreover, the error was compounded by the reporter who relied on the exaggerated number as the basis for his questioning of Pendragon’s president.

The Panel further noted that “this gross mathematical error is not the only source of confusion in the report.” Overall, it considered that “the inexplicable sloppiness surrounding the information relating to potential revenues collected by [the company] created an unfair report.”

It appears to the Quebec Regional Panel in this case that [...] the reporter attempted to make his story more provocative than could ever have been supported by the facts. The Panel considers that the error was so gross that the correct amounts at issue, if accurately calculated (at one-tenth of the figure actually used), may not even have given rise to the story at all.

In TVA re J.E. (“Crusade for a Presbytery”) (CBSC Decision 97/98-0555, September 24, 1998), the Quebec Regional Panel dealt with a complaint from a central player in a real estate deal gone sour who complained that the report on the botched sale of a presbytery was biased and unfair. The complainants, who were members of the Parish in question, alleged, among other things, that the report was misleading because it did not include all the facts of the complex real estate situation. By presenting this abridged version, the complainants contended that J.E. failed to accurately report the story. The Quebec Regional Panel disagreed.

In the Panel’s view, the voluminous correspondence from the complainant principally reveals concerns with J.E.’s choice of story to tell, i.e. J.E.’s focus on the issue of the belief of the potential purchasers that they had bought the presbytery contrasted with their discovery that they did not have an executable contract. The choice of J.E.'s focus on what, in some senses, was a complex ancient legal issue involving the rationale of a strict (and, some might say, anachronistic) principle versus a more comprehensible and modern equitable approach to the problem necessitated their “simplification” of the story in order to explain why the couple in question thought that they had indeed succeeded in their goal, namely, the purchase of the presbytery from the fabrique. That the broadcaster did not include all of the facts and facets of the case does not lead inexorably to the conclusion that the report was inaccurate. In the Panel’s view, such comprehensiveness in news and public affairs reports is not required, nor even reasonable in all cases, particularly when one takes into account the limited time available in which to bring any matter to the small screen. While such a limitation never entitles a broadcaster to be misleading, it does entitle it to simplify or telescope a report in a fair and reasonable way to fit the constraints of the medium.

In CHAN-TV re News (RCMP Investigation of Premier Clark) (CBSC Decision 98/99-0440, October 14, 1999), the B.C. Regional Panel considered a complaint regarding CHAN-TV’s coverage of the investigation and, in particular, the filming of the RCMP service of the warrant at the home of then B.C. Premier Glen Clark. The complainant alleged that the filmed report had invaded the Premier’s privacy and had been biased against him. The Panel disagreed on both counts. In dismissing the allegation of bias in the report, the Panel stated that, in its view,

the broadcaster did everything necessary to give the Premier and his spokespersons fair due. Short of not reporting the matter at all, which would have been a dereliction of the broadcaster’s own duty to the public, the Panel cannot agree with the substance of the complainant's perspective.

While, in CTV re News Item (CO Alarms) (CBSC Decision 98/99-0475, November 19, 1999), the Ontario Regional Panel did not find that a report on carbon monoxide detectors had breached broadcast standards, it was sufficiently uncomfortable with it to call it “an example of on-the-edge journalism”.

The Panel’s problems with the CTV report include the following issues. In the first place, the Panel does not find that the report was anything like irreproachably accurate, which it ought to have been. The inclusion of the declarative words such as “observed by the Ontario Fire Marshall’s office” is a case in point. That the Seneca professor who conducted the test also works for the Ontario Fire Marshall’s office is hardly sufficient to support the claim that the Fire Marshall’s office was in any way officially involved, which is precisely the implication of the language used in the newscast. It was likely included to add credibility to the story when, on that point, the Panel is unsure as to whether such a conclusion was merited.

Similarly, the Panel questions whether the scientifically dependable sense of the phrase “weeks of testing” fairly or accurately describes the so-called “new study”, the results of which were reported by CTV. The Panel notes that, in a similar but not congruent case concerning a report on the potential dangers of indoor playgrounds at fast food restaurants in the Edmonton area, namely, CFRN-TV re Eyewitness News (CBSC Decision 96/97-0149, December 16, 1997), the Prairie Regional Panel did not find the news report sensationalized because of the extent of the broadcaster’s disclosure of the relatively unscientific nature of the testing, among other things.

[T]he reporter describe[d] the method of conducting the tests, which appears to be reasonable but is not presented so as to fool any audience into believing that this is the equivalent of a formal study on a grave infectious disease which would merit inclusion in a medical journal.

No such description or disclosure of the method of conducting the tests was given to CTV’s audience by this report. The viewers were given no solid information relating to the nature of the testing on the basis of which they might be able to form a judgment regarding its unimpeachability. This contrasts with the CFRN situation, in which the Edmonton audience was informed of the relatively unscientific nature of the study. That, too, is a legitimate form of disclosure which permits a thinking audience to draw reasonable conclusions on the basis of the information proffered, an evaluative opportunity which CTV’s viewers were unable to exercise. Moreover, nothing in CTV’s response to the complaint negates the allegation that the so-called “tests” may have been nothing more than a classroom demonstration, as alleged by the complainant. They said:

A CTV News team researched this story for several weeks and learned the tests were conducted at Seneca College in January and February. Twenty-six carbon monoxide detectors, available to consumers in the greater Toronto area, were tested against Canadian standards. CTV News spoke directly to those who conducted the tests, one of whom is a professor at Seneca College, and another, an independent expert. CTV News obtained a copy of the test results, which formed the basis of the report. We believe this report is factually accurate.

There was an opportunity in their own letter and without the time constraints imposed by a television report to explain something more regarding the seriousness and reliability of the tests at Seneca College which would have left the Panel (if not the complainant) with more of a sense of comfort regarding the on-air report of them. They did not take that opportunity. Once again, the network’s very choice of language used, “testing”, without any qualification or limitation of the term, left a sense of greater dependability than appears to have been merited.

Talentvision re a News Report (Mainland China Murders) (CBSC Decision 01/02-0416+, May 3, 2002) concerned a news report that originated from the Mainland China broadcaster Chinese Central Television (CCTV) and was rebroadcast on the Canadian ethnic station Talentvision. The broadcast featured a news story on Fu Yi-bin, who was accused of having killed his wife and his father. The segment directly linked the murders to Fu’s connection to the spiritual group Falun Gong. It included an interview with the accused and showed images of the blood-soaked apartment where the murders took place a total of four times. A complaint came to the CBSC from Falun Gong practitioners in Canada who were concerned about the inaccuracies in the report which, in their view, amounted to abusive discrimination against their spiritual group. Although Falun Gong was not considered to be a “protected group” for the purposes of the CAB and RTNDA Codes of Ethics, the National Specialty Services Panel nonetheless found the report in violation of Article 1 of the RTNDA Code of Ethics:

The Panel is not at all certain that this story would have made the news in China or in Canada but for the connection drawn by the producer of the story to an individual alleged to be a member of Falun Gong. Nor is it clear to the Panel that the news story has credibly established a link between the accused’s connection, if any, to Falun Gong, and the murders, as explained below. While Article 2 of the RTNDA Code of (Journalistic) Ethics requires that such factors as “race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sexual orientation, marital status or physical or mental disability” are to be reported “only when they are relevant,” the Panel does not consider that that provision is of assistance in this matter. According to the Falun Dafa Association’s own documents, “Falun Gong is neither a religion nor a sect. [It is] a peaceful, self-improvement spiritual practice.” Consequently, it would not be seen to be either a religion or any other identifiable group falling into the enumerated categories in Article 2 of the RTNDA Code expressly or by analogy. It is not, in any event, the view of the Panel that Article 2 is necessary to its conclusion in this regard.

The story, as broadcast, is tightly linked to the Falun Gong background of Fu Yi-bin, the alleged (and apparently self-confessed) murderer. It begins by identifying Fu Yi-bin in the first sentence of the report as “a Falun Gong follower”. It concludes by stating that Fu had been “a caring and loving son and husband”, which “changed when he started practising Falun Gong in 1998.” It then adds that his “[march] toward the edge of criminality” was the result of his being “spiritually controlled by Li Hong-zhi [the founder of Falun Gong] and the Falun Gong evil cult organization.” The Panel considers that this approach to a news story is highly unusual and irregular. If in any news context, generally speaking, there were a link between any individual and a group or association, it would only be mentioned if it either assisted in identifying the individual in the mind of the public or established a causal relationship between the link and the event. Thus, when a murder appears, for example, to result from gang rivalries, a “settling of accounts”, a turf dispute or the like, it may be both relevant and in the public interest to identify the families, groups or gangs involved. Even where the head of a powerful organized family dies of natural causes, he will be generally (and justifiably) identified in his “professional” capacity. The connection will not, however, be woven into every section of such a story, even where that news item relates to a criminal activity. Nor would such judgmental words as “evil” be used to describe a motorcycle gang or an organized criminal family.

Since Fu Yi-bin was apparently not a public figure, there would certainly not have been any justification to identify him and his criminal act so constantly as Falun Gong-related. It must also be admitted that it would be most unusual, in a North American judicial environment, to have an accused making such confessions in a television interview as Fu Yi-bin made on this news segment. Had there even been such a causal relationship between the accused and Falun Gong, it would not have been reported in such a manner. The language in the sentence, his “[march] toward the edge of criminality” was the result of his being “spiritually controlled by Li Hong-zhi [the founder of Falun Gong] and the Falun Gong evil cult organization” is not journalism; it is nothing more or less than a biased attack on Falun Gong by the producer of that news item. Whether or not such a report is acceptable, even if not commendable, in Mainland China, the Canadian broadcaster of this imported report must ensure that it meets the standards of broadcast journalism of this country. The Panel finds that the report has not been done in a “fair manner”, as prescribed by Article 1 of the RTNDA Code of (Journalistic) Ethics, nor has it been “fair and proper”, as required by Clause 6, paragraph 3, of the CAB Code of Ethics.

In CKVR-TV re a News Report (Penned Hunt) (CBSC Decision 00/01-0761, June 7, 2002), the Ontario Regional Panel examined a news report about an individual who had filed an application to establish a deer hunting park on his property. The report included interviews with people involved in the issue, including the owner of the hunt park on his wooded piece of land. The report also included footage of deer in a penned unwooded area. The complaint came from the hunt park owner's neighbour who stated that the deer shown in the clip were actually deer from his breeding operation. He was concerned that the news crew had violated his privacy for filming his deer without his permission and that the broadcast misrepresented both the hunt park and his breeding operation. The broadcaster explained that there had been no deer at the hunt park at the time of filming, so they had obtained footage from a property down the road. They stated the need for visuals to accompany the story since television news is a visual medium. The Panel found no breach with respect to invasion of privacy, but it did find a breach for the broadcaster's failure to identify the footage of the deer as not belonging to the hunt park:

At no time has the broadcaster made the audience aware that the scenes were shot at two separate properties. The reporter's statement that the woman is opposed to plans for animals to be hunted "in a fenced-in area" directly overlying the visuals of animals in a penned open field leaves the viewer with the distinct impression that those are in fact the animals to be hunted and that the enclosure shown is indeed the hunt park terrain. Should this not have been the case (and, as matters turned out in fact, it was not), it would have been important and, indeed, accurate to indicate in some manner, such as a "file footage" caption at the bottom of screen or a brief statement that they were discussing "animals like these", that the images of the deer in the open field had been obtained at some location other than the hunt park which was the subject of the report.

The broadcaster claims that "there were visuals of deer and elk but it was neither said nor suggested that these were the specific animals to be hunted […]." The Panel finds no justification for the broadcaster's choices in that statement. While it may not have been said that those were the animals to be hunted, it was suggested that they were. Had the broadcaster been careful with respect to this story, it ought to have indicated that they were not the animals in question and that the circumstances of their disposition in open fields bore little or no relevance to its story on the hunt park. Television journalism tells stories primarily through visual images. The accurate juxtaposition of visuals and words in the television context are key to disseminating news in such a way as "to enable people to know what is happening, and to understand events so that they may form their own conclusions," as required by the CAB Code of Ethics. In disseminating an image, a broadcaster must assume, unless it advises the audience otherwise, that that visual component is a part of the story it is telling. It is not justifiable for it to expect that, unless it advises the viewer that it is a part of the story, the viewer is not reasonably entitled to draw that conclusion. The Panel does not consider that the broadcaster was intending to mislead its audience. Nonetheless, while attempting to help its viewers, it has, in the view of the Panel, done them a disservice in its misrepresentation of the nature of the hunt park. The broadcaster is thus in breach of Clause 6 of the CAB Code of Ethics, and of Article 1 of the RTNDA Code of (Journalistic) Ethics.

In TQS re a News Report on Le Grand Journal (CBSC Decision 01/02-0512, December 20, 2002), the Quebec Regional Panel dealt with a complaint about a news broadcast concerning a woman who had been sheltering nearly 150 cats and dogs on her property and was being evicted. SPCA workers were shown gathering up the animals, some of which appeared sick or wounded, for relocation. Updates about the story in progress were provided throughout the midday news broadcast. Interviews with SPCA representatives, a veterinarian and the woman herself were included. The program was hosted by Gilles Proulx who introduced the story referring to the animals as "des chiens-chiens", "des kikis" and "des pits-pits" and making barking noises. He also called the woman "a rare animal" and, after her interview, in which she responded sarcastically reporter to Jean Lajoie's questions, he suggested that she be given a contract to appear with a comedy troupe. The complaint came from the woman in question in the report who felt that the information and images contained in the report had been inaccurate and that Lajoie had "come across as a fool" in presenting the report, which was in "poor taste". The Panel found no Code breach for the accuracy of the report:

The essential concern of the complainant did not relate to the fact that the story was told at all but rather with the way it was told. In any event, the Panel does find that there is every reason for the broadcaster to have made the decision to report the story. As to the news item itself, the Panel finds that the challenged show was, at least with respect to the reporting by Jean Lajoie and the news components, accurate, balanced and fair. Lajoie reported from Ste-Sophie that the municipality had obtained a Superior Court decision authorizing the SPCA to seize the nearly 150 dogs and cats the complainant had been sheltering and to evict her from the leased premises she had been occupying. The reporter included a video extract showing the state of the animals in the complainant's home and barn. Interviews with a representative of the SPCA, with its Director and with a veterinarian who had examined the animals at the SPCA were included. The complainant herself had the opportunity during an interview with Jean Lajoie to explain her own point of view on the state of her "shelter" and the story of the seizure and eviction. The Panel finds the news of the seizure of the animals reasonably handled and not in breach of any of the foregoing Code provisions.

CTV re a W-FIVE segment ("No Tax") (CBSC Decision 01/02-0965+, January 15, 2003) involved a segment during a public affairs program about a movement known as the "detaxers" who argue that Canadian citizens are not legally required to pay income tax. The first half of the report showed scenes of leading detaxers conducting seminars and featured interviews with the movement's leaders. They explained the legal basis for their views, which rely on the Magna Carta, and they elaborated on how they avoid paying income tax. In the second half of the segment, the host suggested that there may be an underlying anti-government philosophy to the anti-tax movement, which could in turn lead to violence. The segment provided examples of a judge who had been threatened after ruling against a man with detax affiliations, tax employees who had received threatening letters and an RCMP document that warned of "increasing militancy" by anti-tax and anti-government groups. One expert who was interviewed claimed that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh had been an anti-tax protester. W-FIVE accompanied these comments with footage of the Oklahoma bombing. The CBSC received a number of complaints about the segment, primarily from detaxers who felt that the segment had not accurately represented the movement and had made all detax sympathizers look like terrorists. The National Conventional Television Panel explained that its concerns related to the broadcast only and not to the underlying debate on the philosophical merits of the detax position. It found that the broadcaster adequately presented the information and "to the extent that the show as broadcast has left the detax proponents feeling unrequited, it appears to the Panel that the complainants are simply reiterating what they would have wished that the broadcaster include in its report in order to 'make a better case' for their position." The Panel also found that the detaxers "were provided ample opportunity to state their case" and to respond to the allegations of violence within the movement. One specific aspect of two of the complainants' concerns was that the report incorrectly left the impression that detaxers always fail. To this, the Panel responded

Actually, the Panel is unconvinced that that is the impression that is left when one considers that at least four detaxer "gurus" were shown, two of whom were interviewed and one of whom was allowed to state: "I don't [pay taxes]… I haven't been thrown in jail. I haven't had anybody show up at my door… And I'm not worried about it." In counterpoint, two specific cases were presented in the W-FIVE report where detaxers were prosecuted for not paying their taxes; in one case, a Winnipeg couple lost their home and other assets and, in another, "Sir Daniel Kingsly Lear" was identified as someone serving a prison term of 5 years. Moreover, the Minister pointed out that there are 10-20 successful fiscal prosecutions posted on the CCRA web site every month relating to individuals who had refused to pay their taxes. The detaxers had ample opportunity to cite contrary examples, either on air or in their letters of complaint. With the exception of "Reverend" Muljiani, not a single example was proffered.

With respect to the allegations that the report made Canadian detaxers look like terrorists, the Panel found that the link between the Canadian and American examples of violence was weak, but not in breach of any Code. It also did not find that just because the report did not strongly support the position of the detaxers does not lead to the conclusion that the report was "government propaganda" as also alleged.

[Top]