In today’s Cartt.ca, you reported on the CBSC’s decision concerning Fairchild Television and Talentvision’s broadcasts of a news report on July 27, 2006 about the campaign for the federal Liberal Party nomination in the Vancouver Kingsway riding two days later.
In your first paragraph, you commented that the "broadcast of the content of an anonymous flyer … turned out to be wholly inaccurate." While your report of the decision was fair and correct, you did choose to describe the flyer as "wholly" inaccurate.
The CBSC did not say that. The Panel’s comments were focussed and limited, rather than sweeping. The Panel Adjudicators agreed that "the anonymous flyer totally miscast the nature of the proceeding and its result on which the broadcaster focussed and relied." The Panel also declared itself "troubled by the characterization of the amounts as damages associated with any insult to the reputation of Mr. [W] and the association of such damages with Mr. [L] personally." The Panel’s conclusions were limited to those issues; they went no further. The Panel did not at any point characterize the flyer, or the broadcast, as wholly inaccurate.
Ronald I. Cohen
National Chair
Canadian Broadcast Standards Council/Conseil canadien des normes de la radiotélévision
Ed Note: Cartt.ca regrets its choice of words in its story, which has since been altered.
