RTHK-Producers' Guidelines-contents-4.7

3	MATTERS OF PRINCIPLE

3.7 Respect for Privacy　

The rights of individuals to privacy should be respected in all programmes. However, in order to provide information which relates to a person's performance of public duties or about other matters of public interest, intrusions upon privacy, in some circumstances, may be justified for the greater good. On the rare occasions that secret cameras or hidden microphones are to be used (e.g. making of a consumer programme or the recording of a crime or anti-social behaviour), referral procedures should be followed. In covering accidents, disasters and disturbances, balance needs to be struck between full accurate reporting against the obligation to avoid causing unnecessary distress or anxiety. People in a state of shock must not be pressurized to give interviews against their wishes. We must also show compassion when depicting trauma so as not to add needlessly to the distress of people who already know of their loss. Surreptitious recording of identifiable people in grief or under extreme stress, for instance in hospitals, requires special consideration. Normally funerals may only be covered with the permission of the family.

RECORDING TELEPHONE CALLS

RECORDING TELEPHONE CALLS :We should make it a practice to seek permission to record telephone conversations relating to journalistic work whether they are for note-taking or broadcast purposes, or both. Such permission should be sought in advance rather than in the middle or end of a conversation. On occasions, there will be justifiable grounds why the practice cannot be followed:

There is prima facie evidence of crime or serious wrong doing.
The programme maker can show why an open approach would be unlikely to succeed.

DOOR-STEPPING

DOOR-STEPPING :In journalistic work, there are occasions on which a reporter confronts and records a potential interviewee without prior arrangement either in public or sometimes on private property. The term is known as door-stepping.

People who are in the news must expect to be questioned and recorded by the media. Questions asked by reporters as public figures come and go from buildings are usually part of legitimate news gathering, even if the questions are sometimes unwelcome.

Door-stepping should generally be a last resort. It could be justified under the following circumstances :

The investigation involves crime or serious anti-social behaviour, or is of great public interest.
The subject has failed to respond to a repeated request to be interviewed, has refused an interview on unreasonable grounds, or has a history of such failure or refusal.

MEDIA SCRUMS

MEDIA SCRUMS : When a person suddenly features in a news event it may be proper for reporters and news crews to go to his private home to try to secure pictures and interviews.

In such cases, it is important that the combined effect of legitimate newsgathering does not become intimidating or unreasonably intrusive. We must not force our way into premises or harass people with repeated telephone calls or repeated knocks at their doors.

RE-VISITING PAST EVENTS

RE-VISITING PAST EVENTS :Programmes intending to examine past events involving trauma to individuals must think through ways of minimizing the distress that might be caused to surviving victims or to surviving relatives in re-telling the story. So far as is reasonably practicable, surviving victims or the immediate families of the dead people who are to feature in the programme should be informed of the plans. Failure to do this may be deemed a breach of privacy, even if the events or material to be used were once in the public domain. The programme should proceed against the objections of those concerned only if there is a clear public interest.

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