OTTAWA – The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council says the CTV News broadcast on CFTO-TV on the day 17 people were arrested in Ontario on terrorism-related charges violated the industry’s own Code of Ethics.
In a decision released Monday, the Council’s Ontario Panel said CFTO (CTV Toronto) breached Article 4 of the Code on privacy, and it has ordered the station to issue an on-air statement to acknowledge its mistake.
“In the view of the Panel, there was an unsupportable invasion of privacy of the accused individuals, not to mention their families or others living at the same addresses,” the Panel said.
In its newscast on the evening of the arrests, on June 3, 2006, the station read out the names of all the adults charged, their ages, and their full civic addresses.
The reporter, Tom Hayes, said by way of explanation: “They may live in your neighbourhood or on your street and for some of our viewers watching tonight, the terror suspects are literally the people next door. Here is what we know about them and where they’re from.”
The Panel said “there was no indication that the public were any safer, more secure, or better protected by receiving those civic addresses than they would have been without them.
“If anything, the disclosure of that information, coupled with co-anchor Hayes’ comment…might reasonably be expected to raise fear, perhaps even paranoia, on the part of viewers.”
The CBSC’s Ontario Panel reviewed the newscast after receiving a complaint from a viewer, who also complained to CTV.
In response, the network said “it is CTV’s position that the public has a right to know certain information, including where the accused lived…
“In the opinion of senior staff, the addresses of the accused men were in the public interest, and any issues relating to privacy were outweighed by the public’s right to know.
“While this case is extraordinary, it is not without precedent. CTV News, and other news organizations in the city, have on occasion aired the addresses of individuals in the past, when we believed the information was in the public interest,” CTV said.
The Panel, even though it qualified the reply of the unnamed CTV official as “thoughtful and responsive”, disagreed with CTV’s self-defence.
Firstly, it said, other broadcasters have been found in breach of the Code for similar offences. Secondly, it said, the CBSC reviewed a case in Quebec where the name and address of a convicted pedophile was broadcast. In that case, the information violated the privacy of three other individuals who shared the same civic address.
The Panel split though on whether the overall effect of that evening’s newscast prejudiced the right of the accused men to a fair trial.
“While the view of the majority is that the sensational nature of the language used by the broadcaster mirrored to a considerable extent the sensational nature of the charges, it rubbed up against the edge of acceptability.
“While…it is understandable that the prospect of repetition of terrorist incidents is viewed as a serious and frightening matter, there is little purpose served by fanning the flames of fear.
“On balance though, the majority considers the headlines to have been unlikely on their own to affect the right of the accused to a fair trial,” the Panel wrote.
In their dissenting view on this issue, panelists Karen King and Leesa Levinson said the language of the headlines and the reports themselves was “excessive and prejudicial”.
“The broadcaster has placed little or no emphasis on the fundamental assumption that individuals charged with crime are presumed innocent until such time, if any, as their guilt is proved beyond a reasonable doubt…The minority considers that there was, if anything, a perspective that approximated a conclusion that the crime had [their italics] been committed.”
