French TV, Radio Stations Rapped for Charlie Hebdo Attacks Coverage
France's major TV and radio networks were formally rapped by the French broadcast regulator Thursday for serious "breaches" in the way they covered last month's Charlie Hebdo attack and subsequent bloody events.
The warnings were issued for violations including: showing the moment two of the Islamist gunmen cold-bloodedly shot dead a policeman; identifying the two gunmen before police did so publicly; reporting that people were hiding in a Jewish supermarket taken over by a third gunmen; and providing live video feeds of the deadly police assault on the supermarket.
The Conseil Superieur de l'Audiovisuel (CSA) said it determined that 36 breaches of broadcast rules had been committed, to different degrees of gravity, by state channels France 24, France 2, France 3, France 5, France Info, France Inter and RFI as well as commercial broadcasters TF1, LCI, Euronews, Canal+, BFMTV, iTele, Europe 1, RMC and RTL.
The formal notifications served as warnings, but no penalties were imposed unless the outlets repeated the violations.
The CSA said in a statement it recognized the broadcasters' role in "ensuring the public is informed" but that had to be balanced against "allowing law enforcement to fulfill their mission with the required effectiveness."
Source: Agence France Presse
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