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| Good housekeeping |
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Sunday, November 08, 2009
The agreement by the news managers of eight television channels to draw up a code of conduct that could protect viewers from exposure to the gory images we have all been exposed to recently in the aftermath of major incidents of terrorism is extremely welcome. It is a good omen too that the prime minister has announced that a far more draconian code suggested by the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information will not be enforced. Television is a 'hot' medium of news, highly flexible and responsive to events, and equally highly competitive. The urge to be at the front of 'breaking news' has led to streaming banners on the bottom of our screens that are often far from the objective reporting that responsible news coverage should be. The urge to beat the competition to the story has sometimes meant that the old adage that 'truth is the first casualty of war' has left us all less well-informed that we should be. This rush to tell the story has also led to some occasionally appalling lapses of taste in terms of broadcast imagery. Body parts, large and small, lying on roads or hanging from buildings are not what we need to be seeing on our screens. Neither do we need to see microphones pushed in the faces of the injured in the out-patient departments of hospitals nor need we be seeing assorted victims or their relatives screaming into camera. Doubtless there are segments of the population who are happy to lap up this kind of cheap sensationalism – which does not mean that there should be license to pander to the whims and prurient desires of the lowest common denominator.
Regulation of the media in a country that has frequently suffered at the hands of the censorious whims of dictatorial governments is a sensitive matter. However, we see a clear distinction between the need for the media to be self-regulatory in matters of taste and decency, and outright censorship imposed by the state. Self regulation is responsible reporting, whereas censorship is preventing the public from knowing what government may feel to be an uncomfortable truth. Today, we have greater access to more news outlets than we have ever had. The media play an important – indeed vital – role in holding government accountable for its actions no matter what they might be. The electronic media are the format to which a majority of us turn for our diet of news; and thus we welcome the news that eight of our TV news channels have agreed a voluntary code of conduct between themselves. They deserve our congratulations. It is a sign of an emerging maturity that bodes well for the future and will – hopefully – head off any temptation by government to impose controls that may stifle or suppress legitimate news reporting that conforms to inter nationally accepted norms. Good housekeeping is good for all of us, and the cleaning up of our TV screens was long overdue.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
