THE MEDIA Complaints Commission yesterday slammed press coverage of the Helios air crash and is summoning media chiefs to a meeting to discuss its concerns.
During an extraordinary meeting yesterday, the Commission said it strongly disapproved of the media’s handling of the August 14 crash in Greece that killed all 121 people on board, saying there had been a violation of the basic provisions of the code of journalistic ethics.
A statement from the Commission said although the media were entitled to the right of expression, the public has the right to objective, complete and reliable information. This, it said, was an obligation of the media and conceded that in this instance the media was working under difficult conditions.
However, among the charges listed, the Commission said the media had shown no respect for the privacy of grieving relatives, and lacked the necessary sensitivity to human pain and death.
“There existed a lack of discretion and sympathy and was an unnecessary intervention in private lives and in the private moments, bereavements, sadness and mental shock of relatives of the victims of the accident,” the Commission said.
“In certain cases, the accuracy of information was sacrificed to a large extent to the altar of sensationalism so that a climate of bias and confusion was created without any discrimination between comments, guesses and facts.”
In addition, the statement said that in other cases, serious allegations were made against persons who were not contacted to give a response or their own versions.
“There were people condemned by the conscience of public opinion without even being heard or without any investigation into the tragedy having begun,” said the statement.
“The code was also violated by the publication of photographs of children, and details of their personal circumstances.”
The Commission said the fact that some of the information and broadcasts published in Cyprus throughout the tragedy had been published elsewhere beforehand did not exempt local media from having violated the code of ethics.
“These violations undermine and place under serious threat the reliability of the media and creates dangers for freedom of expression and the exercise of the journalistic profession,” the Commission said.
