Complaint
This bulletin included a report on the riots in Ely, South Wales, following the deaths of two teenagers riding an e-bike, which featured footage of the e-bike and the police van involved which had recently come to light. 聽A viewer, who had noticed that the police van 鈥渟uddenly appears from nowhere鈥 in the footage, complained that it had been deliberately edited to give the misleading impression that the police had been in close pursuit of the teenagers shortly before their deaths, reflecting anti-police bias on the part of the 大象传媒.聽 The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the 大象传媒鈥檚 editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality.聽
Outcome
In response to the initial complaint it had been explained that the sequence, which had been shown in full on other bulletins and online, had been edited for reasons of time on this occasion, and that 鈥渢he usual editing techniques were used on screen to make audiences aware an edit had occurred鈥, including leaving the time code, which jumped by 15 seconds at the point when the police van appeared, visible throughout.聽 However, the response also acknowledged that 鈥渢his could have been clearer鈥, and the ECU agreed.聽 In the ECU鈥檚 judgment, the information on screen was not sufficient to guard viewers who had not seen the footage in its unedited form against the misleading impression that the police van had been in close pursuit of the e-bike at the moment in question.聽 As the report itself explained, it was a belief that the police pursuit had caused the deaths of the two teenagers which was thought to have led to the rioting.聽 The ECU therefore considered any impression that the van had been significantly closer to the e-bike than was the case would have been material to viewers鈥 understanding of the relevant facts, and that more should have been done to guard against such a misleading impression.聽 The complaint was upheld in this respect.
As to whether such an impression had been deliberately created because of anti-police bias, the ECU鈥檚 enquiries left it in no doubt that the programme-makers had genuinely believed that the nature and extent of the editing would have been clear to viewers 鈥 and in any event, if the programme-makers had intended to mislead viewers they would hardly have left evidence on screen from which both the fact of editing and the length of the edit could be deduced.
Partly upheld