BBC Home


23 November 2009
Accessibility help
Text only

Editorial Guidelines logo

Editorial Guidelines logo

BBC Homepage

Editorial Guidelines Home
Editorial guidelines in Full
A-Z Index
Section Index
The BBC's Editorial Values
About the Guidelines
Accuracy
Impartiality & Diversity of Opinion
Fairness, Contributors & Consent
Privacy
Crime & Anti-Social Behaviour
Harm & Offence
Children
Politics & Public Policy
War, Terror & Emergencies
Religion
Editorial Integrity & Independence
External Relationships
Interacting with our Audiences
The Law
Accountability
Ofcom Broadcasting Code
Online Services Guidelines
Guidance
Mandatory Referrals
Forms
Newsletter
Contact Editorial Policy
Research Reports
Compliance
How to use this site

Editorial Guidelines in Full

Harm & Offence

• Introduction
• Harm and offence editorial principles
• Audience expectations
• Sign posts & content information
• Scheduling of programme trails
• Television & the watershed
• News channels
• Radio & online
• Children & dangerous imitation
• Violence
• Nudity
• Sex
• Language
• Portrayal
• Alcohol, smoking, solvent & drug abuse & illegal drugs
• Suicide, attempted suicide & self-harm
• Safety & the law
• Tragic events
• Hypnotism
• Exorcism, the occult and the paranormal
• Acquired programmes
• Flashing images, strobing & photo sensitive epilepsy
• Images of very brief duration

Violence

Our audiences, particularly children, can be upset by the portrayal of both real and fictional violence and so we should normally clearly label violent content.

When real life violence, or its aftermath, is shown on television or reported on radio and online we need to strike a balance between the demands of accuracy and the dangers of desensitisation or unjustified distress.

Our editorial judgements about violence need to consider a number of factors which, in combination, can increase the impact of violence:

• violence that is true to life and may also reflect personal experience, for example, domestic violence, pub brawls, football hooliganism, road rage, mugging.
• violence in places normally regarded as safe such as the family home, hospitals and schools.
• unusual or sadistic methods of inflicting pain, injury or death.
• incidents where women and children are the victims.
• violence without showing the effect on the victim or the consequences for the perpetrator.
• sexual violence.
• verbal aggression, particularly the use of sexual swearwords.
• suicide, attempted suicide or self harm.
• broadcast reactions of others to violence, especially those of children.
• post-production techniques such as atmospheric music, slow motion, graphic close ups and sound effects.

We should take care to ensure that individual programmes, or programmes taken together across the schedule, avoid including material that condones or glamorises violence, dangerous or seriously anti-social behaviour and is likely to encourage others to copy such behaviour unless clearly editorially justified.

Violence and the protection of children

We must ensure that verbal or physical violence that is easily imitable by children in a manner that is harmful or dangerous is not featured in programmes made primarily for children unless there it is a strong editorial justification.

We should also ensure that material containing gratuitous violence, whether verbal or physical, is not broadcast in pre-Watershed programmes or when children are particularly likely to be in our radio audience or in online content likely to appeal to a high proportion of children. Any portrayal of verbal or physical violence, or its after-effects, must be editorially justified.

Violence against Animals

Audiences, particularly children, can often be distressed by images or scenes which show human violence against animals. If the scenes are graphic but we know that the animal suffered no harm, then we should consider saying so in an on air or online announcement or caption.

< previous page  |  |  next page >