Live and direct
Dramatic live coverage this morning from Manila where a group of rebel soldiers were holed up. The rebels were demanding the resignation of Philippines President Arroyo - essentially trying to mount a coup d'etat. The security forces fired teargas and used an armoured personnel carrier to batter their way in. And we watched it all live on News 24 (you can see some of the footage here).
I've blogged in the past about the compelling nature of live pictures, but today's events posed even more problems than usual.
Problem 1:
What exactly was going on?
As well as conveying the latest information - in a rapidly changing situation - we had to provide analysis and background for those of us not intimately familiar with the latest twists and turns in the power struggle in the Philippines. Which meant the newsroom team were frantically trying to find eyewitnesses to describe what THEY could see, as well as getting the political context from - amongst others - our world affairs correspondents in London and newspaper journalists in Manila.
One highlight was a British tourist who ended up trapped in a shop opposite the hotel - she gave us a fascinating eyewitness account and is perhaps the first person to have had a foot massage interrupted by an attempted coup.
Problem 2:
Our one man on the spot - who gets him?
91Èȱ¬ Manila correspondent Michael Barker was reporting live - for News 24 and 91Èȱ¬ World as well as World Service radio - from the hotel lobby as the drama unfolded. It is often quite a juggling act to make sure all the various 91Èȱ¬ outlets get a fair share of the one correspondent in the thick of the story. Today, Radio 5 Live were the unfortunate victims of a lost phone connection just as they were about to interview him. They used some excellent local journalists outside the hotel instead.
Problem 3:
Live pictures - really?
Most of the feed from Manila was live - with cameras both outside the hotel and in a corridor inside. But sometimes, with no warning, the news agency switched to recorded images. I think we managed to make clear to the audience which bits of our coverage were live and which were not.
Problem 4:
Could this turn really nasty?
The biggest issue facing us this morning - and an ever-present consideration when transmitting live pictures. Even on a news channel, which does what it says on the tin, we don't want to show viewers overly graphic images of injury or death. We take great care to try to convey the seriousness of a story, but without being gratuitous or sensational in our use of pictures.
Today, we were ready to leave the live stream of pictures at any moment - and when we saw the APC firing into the hotel lobby, we came very close to making that decision. As it happened, the most distressing pictures were of journalists and rebels clearly affected by tear gas.
There is a tried and tested plan B for these circumstances: to show potentially shocking pictures not live, but with a 10 or 15 second delay. Some radio stations do this with phone-ins, so they can stop the real nutters getting on air. And WE do it so that someone monitoring the live feed can yell "too gory - don't show this bit" - allowing us to switch instantly to some acceptable recorded pictures before the unacceptable images were broadcast. Today, we stayed - slightly nervously - with the live feed. But it was a close call.
By the end of today, I expect that this morning's coup attempt will have disappeared from the headlines - but it was riveting while it was happening. I hope we conveyed that, and helped explain why it was important.
Update, Tues 11:00 AM: Thanks for your comments, I've replied to some here.
Comments
I hardly think 20 or 30 soldiers holed up in a hotel can be classed as a coup d'etat. A bit of balance rather than sensationalism please!
"There is a tried and tested plan B for these circumstances: to show potentially shocking pictures not live, but with a 10 or 15 second delay. Some radio stations do this with phone-ins, so they can stop the real nutters getting on air. And WE do it so that someone monitoring the live feed can yell "too gory - don't show this bit" - allowing us to switch instantly to some acceptable recorded pictures before the unacceptable images were broadcast"
I was stunned by this passage and its' apparent support of censorship. Life can be messy, sometimes graphically so, but isn't it preferable to broadcast the actual news rather than a censored version? Who decides what is acceptable? Why can't I make up my own mind?
The only reason for introducing a delay in transmission is to censor the output. Given the recent trust issues surrounding broadcasters, wouldn't it be better to let the public see the unedited truth?
"As well as conveying the latest information - in a rapidly changing situation - we had to provide analysis and background for those of us not intimately familiar with the latest twists and turns in the power struggle in the Philippines. Which meant the newsroom team were frantically trying to find eyewitnesses to describe what THEY could see, as well as getting the political context from - amongst others - our world affairs correspondents in London and newspaper journalists in Manila."
At which point does eyewitness account form analysis and background? An interrupted foot massage does not add to the story!
Background is background, analysis is analysis. Eyewitness accounts do not add anything in a confused situation unless, say, that eyewitness was directly involved in the story (e.g., hostage, army, police, etc).
Eyewitness accounts of the tourist variety in this sort of reportage normally smack of time-filling.
Aw come on, Michael A-H - I'm all for the news telling the unadulterated truth, but the fact of the matter is that some images are simply not suitable for a daytime audience: young children and those of a sensitive disposition may be watching, and it would be pretty traumatising to see live pictures of someone being dismembered live on the news. It's simply not to everyone's taste, whereas if these sorts of feeds were left until after the watershed, at least they could be shown with a warning that they may contain unsuitable images. The those who find that seeing death and gore on a very real and messy basis really isn't to their taste can choose not to watch.
Surely there are also some legal implications to this kind of live feed - people deserve some privacy and dignity if they are injured or killed, not to be beamed live across the world for our "viewing pleasure" - imagine if you saw live shots of a relative or acquaintance dying on TV... hardly appropriate or fair to either you or them.
There is a line between broadcasters showing "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" and outraging public decency, and I think our news services do a very good job of staying on the right side of that line.
Thanks for your comments - and thanks, Michael, for your provocative post! I think Jenni has admirably summed up why we don't show what you refer to as "the unedited truth", but let me add my own two-penn'orth.
Life can indeed be "messy, sometimes graphically so" but I would disagree with your assertion that employing a delay on live pictures is nothing more than censorship. It is simply part of the editorial decision-making process: every day we are offered pictures that are, for a variety of reasons, not suitable for broadcast. Let me offer just two examples: the aftermath of a bomb explosion; and the reaction of bereaved relatives.
* Bomb aftermath: pictures shot by news agencies and other camera crews will almost always include close-ups of body parts - and although News 24 is often more robust in its choice of pictures than, say, a teatime bulletin on 91Èȱ¬ One, I doubt many viewers would wish us to transmit such gratuitously distressing material.
* Reaction of the bereaved: we are careful not to be overly intrusive when showing people grieving - this essentially means avoiding close-up shots and avoiding lingering on any pictures of the bereaved.
You asked "who decides what is acceptable?", and the answer is… err.. me - at least, it's me when I'm in charge of the News 24 output. As well as choosing which pictures are broadcastable and which are not, it's also down to me and the other editors to decide which news items should run, and which don't get airtime. We don't always get it right ("Great Fire of London??"), but right or wrong it's not censorship, it's just part of the job of editing on a news channel.
If an incident is so horrific that it has to be watered down then it should not be shown at all. Showing a bowdlerised version of events results in the viewer being mislead. Even a statement, as is sometimes done, that bits have been omitted may not sufficient. Pictures carry a lot more weight than words.
It may not be such good TV but if necessary it should be the journalist who appears on the screen to describe what happened.
'Outraging Public Decency' is a frequently misunderstood and frequently misused legal term. It only applies to actions considerably beyond shocking or offensive. By using it in this context, where the threshold is a lot lower, the reader is mislead as to the meaning of the phrase. Misuse of legal terms can result in real harm to people.
If an incident is so horrific that it has to be watered down then it should not be shown at all. Showing a bowdlerised version of events results in the viewer being mislead. Even a statement, as is sometimes done, that bits have been omitted may not sufficient. Pictures carry a lot more weight than words.
It may not be such good TV but if necessary it should be the journalist who appears on the screen to describe what happened.
'Outraging Public Decency' is a frequently misunderstood and frequently misused legal term. It only applies to actions considerably beyond shocking or offensive. By using it in this context, where the threshold is a lot lower, the reader is mislead as to the meaning of the phrase. Misuse of legal terms can result in real harm to people.
Bowderising items inevitably misleads the public. In particular film of war scenes sanitises it to such an extent that the true nature of warfare is obscured. If it can't be shown honestly then don't show it at all.
There is a much wider issue here. There is systematic censorship of broadcasters output, sometimes on very dubious grounds, and it can seriously mislead the viewer. For example consider the normal dress of all except the adult nobility in Ancient Egypt. Slaves/peasants and prepubescent children only wore clothing when the temperature demanded it.
When did a travel programme ever show a nudist beach honestly? Or even mention one, but at least 7 million Britons have been to one and well over a million describe themselves as being a naturist.
It is very easy for misguided people to complain about something that is seen but how can people complain about censorship if they don't know that it has taken place?
There is is overwhelming evidence that prudery does harm but because of the inherently one sided way in which the complaints process works the Mary Whitehouse Tendency wins out.