BBC Attacked over 7/7 coverage

[Teddy Bear]

In true Vicky Pollard style, following criticism by Ofcom over its 7/7 coverage, the BBC tries to excuse itself.

BBC attacked over 7/7 coverage

Dominic Timms
Monday September 26, 2005


Ofcom has singled out the BBC for criticism of its coverage of the July 7 bomb attacks on London.
The BBC has apologised for using harrowing footage of a critically injured man being stretchered into the Royal London hospital.

The same footage was later shown by ITV and Channel 4 news programmes but both organisations escaped censure after the media regulator ruled they had used the footage "in a proper context".

Twenty-six people complained after the images were shown on BBC1 and News 24 introduced by a studio presenter saying, "Let's just take a look at some of the pictures coming from the Royal London."

Ofcom accused the corporation of using the pictures "generically," saying the accompanying commentary did "not reflect the seriousness" of the situation.

The BBC expressed regret for showing the footage, saying in the rush to get the news to air it had not checked the contents of the tape thoroughly.

Yeah But

Ofcom said it was not opposed to the broadcast of the images of a man receiving heart massage as he was rushed into hospital, but said their "exceptionally strong and disturbing" content called for "exceptional justification."

"It appeared to us that the pictures were used generically and the commentary did not reflect the seriousness of the images being transmitted.

"We welcome the BBC's admission that the images had not been viewed properly, and its acknowledgement that they should have not been put to air in such a manner."

The regulator ticked off Channel 4 over its use of the images in its 7pm bulletin for not "fully reflecting the enormity of the images being reflected," but said the broadcaster did not breach programming codes because it "did not use them casually".

Meanwhile, ITV avoided criticism by the regulator by establishing a "clear narrative context" with "sensitive accompanying reporting".

Earlier this month, the BBC director of news and current affairs, Helen Boaden, defended the corporation's coverage of the London bomb attacks, saying it had stayed with initial reports of a power surge because it wanted to "check things out".
"There was a moment where that was what the story was. And we continued to go with that until we had verifiable evidence," she told the Guardian.

"Some of our competitors talked immediately of 90 dead. They talked about three bus bombs. That was off a range of various wire services and it was complete speculation and we wouldn't go with that. We would be careful - we would try to check things out."

No But.....