BBC Gets Tough on (Glamorized) Violence

The British Broadcasting Corp. plans to adopt tough new guidelines to prevent the glamorization of violent crime in its news and current-affairs programming.

The regulations follow three months of intense debate within the BBC in response to suggestions that excessive media coverage had fueled public fear of violence. Particular concern has been expressed about programs that feature dramatic reconstructions of serious offenses.

The draft guidelines for journalists were unveiled Wednesday at a seminar on crime organized by the BBC’s board of governors.

Editors of news bulletins and current-affairs programs will be required to reassess the amount of time devoted to crime stories. The guidelines warn them against “regurgitating” lurid crime stories on early-morning news and “copying” stories that have appeared in newspapers.

Richard Ayre, controller of editorial policy at the BBC, said: “The fact that a crime is new and fresh doesn’t necessarily merit a place in our bulletins.” He agreed that the guidelines, to be published later this month, may reduce the number of crime stories seen on BBC news programs.

They will require extra care over shots of blood at the scene of a crime, and close-up shots of weapons will be censored. Also, emotive adjectives will be discouraged. “We must avoid hype and sensationalism,” Ayre said.

Crime reconstruction sequences also face a tough reappraisal. Dramatic music and speculative details or dialogue will be banned and camera angles that illustrate a criminal’s viewpoint will not be allowed.

A recent poll placed public fear of crime above that of unemployment for the first time. Mary Tuck, a Home Office criminologist who attended the BBC seminar, said that violent personal crime still accounted for only 5% of recorded offenses. But she said that popular fear of personal attack and rape had increased dramatically so that the perception of danger was out of all proportion with reality.