TV One documentary unfair, says authority

TVNZ has been told to broadcast a statement pointing out a One News Insight documentary about private tertiary courses lacked fairness. 

Robin Laing of the New Zealand Film and Television School had complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority that a segment about the film industry in the documentary was unbalanced, inaccurate and unfair.  

One News Insight: Learning the Hard Way was broadcast on TV One on September 15 last year. It examined concerns that privately-run tertiary courses in New Zealand were leading to a proliferation of graduates and looked at four areas -- film making, scuba diving, computer animation, and policing.  

Ms Laing complained that the school was included by association, impression and implication in a manner that would leave the viewing public in no doubt that the story was actually about the school.  

She also complained that participation by Tommy Honey, the school's director, was gained by misrepresentation on the part of the production company and that Mr Honey was presented as speaking for all "film" schools. 

It was also claimed that the production company misrepresented the role and status of the Film School, demeaning and damaging it in the eyes of the public, and that the broadcaster allowed a grossly derogatory quote by a Film School graduate without checking its accuracy or providing the school with an opportunity to respond.  

In its determination the authority found that the school was treated unfairly in the broadcast and clearly implicated by association in comments about substandard courses and inadequate teaching.  

It also said the programme denied Mr Honey the opportunity to address serious concerns voiced in the item and that Mr Honey agreed to participate under a different premise for the programme than the one that went to air. This, it said, breached the fairness standard.  

It agreed that the Film School was implicated in the allegations of "duping" without being given an opportunity to respond and upheld that this breached the fairness standard.  

The authority found the graduate student's comments were a genuine expression of opinion rather than a statement of fact and this aspect of the complaint was not upheld. Neither was the complaint that the school was not given the opportunity to respond.  

It said it did not consider an award of costs to the Film School to be appropriate, instead directing TV One to broadcast a statement summarising the authority's decision and comprehensively explaining the reasons for the finding that the broadcast breached Standard Six -- fairness -- of the Free-to-Air Code.

* TVNZ has also been ordered to broadcast a statement saying its reporting was unfair and inaccurate and to pay $5000 legal costs over a news article about a woman who was to have a mastectomy that was unfair to the woman's doctor. 

The doctor involved, Barbara Fraser, had complained the article was unfair, inaccurate, unbalanced and breached privacy, but the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) ruled only that it was inaccurate and unfair. 

She had asked for $14,732.

- NZPA