OTTAWA – A cellphone video that showed students being stabbed at their BC high school should not have been included in televised newscasts, says the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC).
On November 1, 2016, two female high school students in Abbotsford were stabbed by an attacker in a school hallway. The school was in lockdown for many hours and a suspect was taken into custody. The incident was the top story on the 6:00 PM newscasts of both Global BC and CTV Vancouver, and both stations' reports included cellphone video of part of one attack that had been posted to social media internet sites.
CTV warned viewers before showing the video, blurred out the victim’s image, and eliminated the audio portion. Global also blurred out the victim’s image, but included the audio portion and failed to advise viewers in advance. Global also rebroadcast the clip twice during its 11:00 PM newscast. The CBSC said that it received numerous complaints from viewers of both stations, expressing concern that the clip was violent, disturbing, and disrespectful to the victims and their families.
A CBSC Adjudicating Panel examined the complaints under the News article of the CAB Violence Code and the Respect article of the RTDNA Code of Journalistic Ethics. It concluded that inclusion of the cellphone video was unnecessary to tell the story, meaning that both broadcasters violated both codes. It also concluded that Global violated the code provision that requires broadcasters to warn viewers in advance of showing scenes of graphic violence.
