OTTAWA – A homeowner who had the chutzpah to take pictures of a bungled robbery attempt of his own home (the klutzy burglar fell from a second-storey deck) should have at least gotten an on-air credit for his work, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council said today.
A July 25, 2007 report that aired on CablePulse 24’s CityNews failed to identify the photographer of still photographs that were used in the report, and the majority of the CBSC’s National Specialty Services Panel said the omission was contrary to Article 11 of the Radio-Television News Directors Association – The Association of Electronic Journalists Code of Ethics.
The homeowner witnessed the attempted robbery and the burglar’s plunge and took photographs of the him lying on the ground, which he posted on his photography web site, which is hosted on Flickr. The photos were then used in CP24’s broadcast.
The homeowner-photographer said the station didn’t get his permission to use the pictures posted on Flickr and wanted to be credited in the broadcast. So he complained to the CBSC.
CP24 said that its news team had received verbal permission when they came to the home to film. However, the National Specialty Services Panel examined the complaint under Article 11 of the RTNDA Code of (Journalistic) Ethics which states: “Plagiarism is unacceptable. Broadcast journalists will strive to honour the intellectual property of others, including video and audio materials.”
The majority of the Panel concluded that the broadcast violated this article because CP24 knew full well the identity of the photographer and so he should have been credited with the shots.
“It seems to the panel to be the opposite of honouring the intellectual property of a creator to take his or her work without acknowledgment and to, in effect, pass that work off as the broadcaster’s own,” says the press release.
One adjudicator, however, dissented on the grounds that the broadcaster had reasonably assumed it had been given permission to use the photographs and that Article 11 of the RTNDA Code of (Journalistic) Ethics was not intended to cover issues relating to giving credit for the use of materials, as in this case, said the dissenter.
