Is the broadcasting - happening tonight on British TV for the first time - of the moment a seriously-ill man dies by assisted suicide, responsible journalism that offers insight into an important debate? Or is it "cynical", "sad" and "dangerous", putting vulnerable viewers at risk?
The Rupert Murdoch-owned Sky Real Lives channel, which is making the broadcast, says its programme tonight - about the death by assisted suicide earlier this year of Craig Ewert, a 59-year-old British man with motor neurone disease - is an important contribution to a vital debate.
Certainly, the decision to make the broadcast, has stirred a debate here.
The channel's head, Barbara Gibbon told the Guardian newspaper, for example, that the programme is: "an informative, articulate and educated insight into the decisions some people have to make."
"I think it's important that broadcasters give this controversial subject a wider airing," she said. And a number of documentary makers and journalists lined up to defend the broadcast. Respected documentary maker Roger Graef told the paper: "If someone has allowed the filming to happen I don't see a problem with that. We don't have to watch it. We know it's a film about euthanasia. I think it informs the debate."
Opponents of euthanasia and rival media groups could not have disagreed more.
Dominica Roberts of the Pro-Life Alliance says the programme suggests that some lives were "worthless". "It is both sad and dangerous to show this kind of thing on the television," she said.
"It's creating the impression that there is a huge demand for this," said Dr Peter Saunders of the Care Not Killing alliance, adding that there was a danger that viewers who are themselves seriously ill, and possibly consider themselves a burden on their family and carers, might feel "subtly" pressurised by the broadcast to follow suit.
This point was key for the Daily Mail newspaper, which said the real debate was not over euthanasia, but the broadcast. "Should this most intimate of family scenes really be broadcast?" it asked.
So what are the rules? Broadcasters in Britain are governed by a code of conduct, agreed with the official regulator OFCOM. A key debate here will be whether or not the broadcast violates rule 2.5: "Methods of suicide and self-harm must not be included in programmes except where they are editorially justified and are also justified by the context."
And it's not just broadcasters. Like many media houses, AFP has guidelines on reporting suicide, as I have said here before, directing our reporters not to shy away from reporting suicide but to use simple, clear language when we do, and to make sure our reports then do not "glamorise the taking of a person's life and do not dwell on the method used unless it is of paramount news interest."
-Yahoo.
What a load of Crap.
Linear Mode
