OTTAWA – Content that aired on French sports network RDS and a newscast on CTV British Columbia violated the country’s broadcast codes, according to two decisions issued by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC).
In the first decision, the CBSC examined the November 15, 2011 episode of RDS’s sports magazine program 5 à 7 which contained a segment entitled ‘Laprise branché!’. Commentator Michel Laprise showed a videoclip, which a viewer had sent to him, of a man with dwarfism being used as a bowling ball by people of regular size. Laprise joked that this bowling activity requires only [translations] “a sheet of rubber, “oil”, “a dwarf with a sense of humour”, and “a single sister-in-law who is willing to date a dwarf just during the holiday season”.
The Quebec Association of Persons of Short Stature complained to the CBSC about the harassing and degrading depiction of persons of short stature. RDS pointed out that Laprise had apologized on air a week after the broadcast.
The CBSC’s Quebec Regional Panel examined the complaint under the Human Rights Clauses of the CAB Code of Ethics and Equitable Portrayal Code as well as under the provisions of the Equitable Portrayal Code relating to negative portrayal, stigmatization and victimization, and degrading material. The Panel concluded that the broadcast violated all of those Code provisions because “the segment presented persons of small stature as mere objects of humour and ridicule.”
In its second decision, the CBSC reviewed a breaking news report that aired on CTV British Columbia’s (CIVT-TV) late evening newscast on February 22, 2011 about a fire at a local tandoori restaurant. The news anchor informed viewers that no one was injured and the cause of the fire had yet to be determined. The anchor then mentioned that the restaurant had been in the news in the past due to a dispute between its owner and the owner of a similarly-named restaurant in the same neighbourhood. The report included video footage of separate interviews with the two restaurant owners about that dispute.
The owner of the damaged restaurant complained that it was inappropriate that the report had mentioned the previous dispute because it had long been resolved and was irrelevant to the story about the fire.
The CBSC’s British Columbia Regional Panel concluded that CTV British Columbia violated Clause 5 of the CAB Code of Ethics and Article 1 of the RTDNA Code of Ethics because it had inaccurately made it sound like the conflict between the two tandoori restaurant owners was ongoing. The Panel also concluded that, while the broadcaster had not violated anyone’s privacy, it had unfairly included irrelevant background information because the story about the restaurant name dispute was unrelated to the fire. That element of the report violated Clause 6 of the CAB Code of Ethics.
Created in 1990 by Canada’s private broadcasters to administer the codes of standards that they established for their industry, the CBSC currently administers 7 codes dealing with ethics, equitable portrayal, violence, news and journalistic independence.
