Edinburgh: Sky would go live with footage that threatens hostage’s life
Posted by
Colin Crummy
on 25 August 2007 at 15:24
Tags: Edinburgh 2007, Edinburgh International Television Festival, Journalism, Sky News
Sky News would broadcast live footage of a hostage situation, even if it knew it was likely to endanger the hostage’s life, according to its news editor, John Ryley.
“We’re in the business of going live,” said Ryley, who added: “the key word is transparency – we’re in the business of giving people information.”
In a session at the Edinburgh TV festival, a group of five news editors were presented with a real time scenario in which a fictional hostage crisis was played out.
The experiment, Terror Tapes: Broadcast or be Damned, revolved around a rapidly changing set of circumstances which concluded with the editors having to decide whether to broadcast a live rescue attempt of the hostage, while being aware the hostage takers were watching their broadcast.
In the scenario, Sky chose to go live with the footage, which resulted in the hostage’s death because it alerted the hostage takers to the rescue attempt. The BBC’s News at Ten editor Craig Oliver stuck to BBC editorial guidelines by putting a delay on the footage.
Ryley said the fact the hostage crisis was directly linked to British foreign policy because of the hostage being a high profile army officer made the story one to be told “in a democracy”.
Tags: Edinburgh 2007, Edinburgh International Television Festival, Journalism, Sky News
