On-Air errors must be corrected on-air: Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council says it’s not enough for broadcasters to issue corrections on their websites; they must issue on-air corrections as well if that's where the mistake originally occured. The decision stems from a complaint made against CTV News Channel for two reports it aired.
The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council says it’s not enough for broadcasters to issue corrections on their websites; they must issue on-air corrections as well.
CTV News Channel reported twice on February 25, 2013 that a Palestinian man being detained in an Israeli prison had been participating in a hunger strike when he died. Honest Reporting Canada, which describes itself as an “independent grass-roots organization promoting fairness and accuracy in Canadian media coverage of Israel and the Middle East,” complained the prisoner had not, in fact, been on a hunger strike. The CBSC agreed this was the case and also noted that the autopsy report said the cause of death was inconclusive.
The CBSC decision, released Wednesday, found CTV breached the codes of ethics of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the Radio Television Digital News Association in those two broadcasts.
[node:ad]
Related content on J-Source:
- Are journalists keeping up with real-time journalism?
- How drones have been used in journalism and the potential for future use
- What Canadian media is missing about climate change
CTV News Channel did not the broadcast the story after its original two airings and had corrected the story on its website, but the CBSC says that was not sufficient. The CBSC “concluded that the error should have been corrected on television because that is where the error occurred.”
Tamara Baluja is an award-winning journalist with CBC Vancouver and the 2018 Michener-Deacon fellow for journalism education. She was the associate editor for J-Source from 2013-2014.