Consultation Response - Media 12 - Cardiff University PDF 2 MB

The item was developed with interviews from BBC’s Panorama, most notably
the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Keir Starmer. However, the remit of
the DPP has jurisdiction only in England and Wales, which was not stated
before, during or after the interview. On Radio 4’s Six O’Clock News the
relevant item began:
The Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, has announced there is to be a review into the
way police are using cautions and fixed penalty notices. The move comes amid rising
concern from the Director of Public Prosecutions and others that increasing numbers
of offenders are being dealt with through out-of-court penalties, rather than going
before magistrates. (Radio 4 Six O’Clock News, 9 November 2009)
To gain further authority on the issue, a BBC journalist was interviewed in a
second news item on the story describing the cautions system as if it was a
UK-wide justice issue. Finally, the Justice Secretary was interviewed at some
length (four minutes and 16 seconds) about the review but at no stage in the
interview was it mentioned that the remit covered England and Wales-only
jurisdiction. It is clear, in this instance, that time was not a constraint on
clarifying the geographical relevance of the story.
Implied context
The only hint of the story’s applicability to England and Wales on BBC
broadcast news was found on Radio 4’s Six O’Clock News. It quoted figures of
cautions being handed out – over 39,000 for actual bodily harm in the past
year – before adding: “The results were from 39 police forces in England and
Wales”. However, at no stage was it clearly stated that the review was
relevant only to England and Wales. While there was some implied context
that the story related to England and Wales only, we found that, in other
stories, these nations were often sourced together even when the story
related to the UK as a whole. This may be partly explained by the way data
are measured at the Office of National Statistics, but it does mean that an
audience member could not assume that the use of a statistic is indicative of
the story’s relevance.
The only BBC news items to state that Scotland does not have a cautions
system was on BBC online. A prominent box that contextualised the review
was presented:
CAUTIONS: THE FIGURES
• Results from 39 of 41 police forces in England and Wales surveyed
• 38,952 cautions issued for actual bodily harm (ABH)
• 739 cautions issued for grievous bodily harm (GBH)
• Half of all criminal cases dealt with using cautions
• Cautions are not used in Scotland
34