Channel 4's crass sensationalism
9:43am
My first job was working for Index on Censorship, so I instinctively recoil from prior restraint of the media. Nonetheless, there is a difference between censorship and humane editing, and the defence of free speech ultimately depends upon society understanding the distinction. I can see absolutely no merit in Channel 4 broadcasting the photographs of the crash scene in tonight’s documentary about the death of Diana. True, the programme-makers are not showing the infamous paparazzi pictures of the dying princess herself. But – in exercising this minimal discretion – they are seeking to have their sensationalist cake and eat it. I imagine that they are privately thrilled by the row, and part of me thinks that by posting on this matter at all I am merely adding a few cubic centimetres to the oxygen of publicity. But there it is: Channel 4 has had its say, and we should have ours.
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JH
June 6th, 2007 10:09am Report this commentThe transmission of TV pictures showing scenes of violent and traumatic events is commonplace. Think of the airliners crashing into the WTC on 9/11, the smoke and flames of RFA Sir Galahad in the Falkland War, the tsunami engulfing holiday beaches in Thailand. Do the relatives of those doomed airline passengers, Welsh Guardsmen or holidaymakers have the right to request they not be shown? Of course not, because these were major public news events. The unhappy demise of the late Princess of Wales was a similarly public event and I cannot see how TV coverage of the crash scene, not showing pictures of the princess herself, is any different from the other examples I have quoted. Channel 4's motives may be as tawdry as usual, but that is the price we pay for a free press. The alternative prospect of TV companies responding to pressure from the influential and powerful strikes me as the thin end of a worrying wedge of censorship in the interests of the powerful, and would set a disturbing precedent which an illiberal government may relish following . Channel 4 should transmit and be damned.
EyeSee
June 6th, 2007 10:33am Report this commentI find myself wondering, on hearing of Channel 4's self-important view on showing the photographs, whether it would be a great loss to the human experience were Channel 4 to cease to exist. Certainly some unemployable Left-liberal idiots would be out of work, but that is only one of the many good reasons to put this particular mongrel down. Basically it comes down to this; the family of the dead woman have said they would find a public showing of pictures distressing and Channel 4 have said that they thought about that and disagree. It is not that those who run Channel 4 are lacking decency, it appears that the whole concept is alien to them.
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