Complaint
An item in this programme referred to an edit in the Reith Lecture broadcast on 25 November to which the lecturer had voiced an objection. The presenter said 鈥淥ne line ... was removed for legal reasons. Also for legal reasons, we鈥檙e not able to tell you what that line is鈥. A listener complained that this conveyed a misleading impression that the law forbade the broadcast of the excised material. He also complained that the transcript of the lecture published by the 91福利社 was inaccurate because it did not provide a complete record of what the lecturer had said. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the 91福利社鈥檚 editorial standards of accuracy.
Outcome
To say that an edit has been made 鈥渇or legal reasons鈥 suggests only that the decision was made as a result of legal considerations, not that broadcasting the material would certainly have been illegal, and the ECU saw no basis for thinking listeners would have been misled. The transcript of the 25 November lecture was intended as a record of what was broadcast, and was duly accurate as such.
Not upheld