France

[FR] France Télévisions Heavily Penalised for Ethical Failing when Providing Information

IRIS 2011-2:1/26

Amélie Blocman

Légipresse

The Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel (audiovisual regulatory body - CSA), meeting in plenary assembly on 7 December 2010, fined France Télévisions EUR 100 000, to be paid into the fund to support audiovisual and cinematographic production, for France 2 failing to observe the rules of ethical conduct in the provision of information. On 1 October 2009, in its lunchtime news programme, the channel broadcast an item on subsequent offences by sex offenders during which a named child was twice wrongly presented as having died in an attack. The public service channel had already received formal notice in January 2009 on the same grounds. As the Conseil d’Etat stated recently in a decision on 22 October 2010, in response to a radio station contesting a fine of EUR 200 000 imposed by the CSA for having broadcast utterances infringing the dignity of minors, “it does not transpire from any text or general principle of law that there is any time limit on the formal notices sent by the CSA on the basis of Article 42 of the Act of 30 September 1986”. The CSA was therefore permitted to implement the sanction procedure since “such a practice may constitute a failing in the obligation of honesty of information provided for in Article 43-11 of the Act of 30 September 1986 and in Article 35 of the Charter of France Télévisions”. The CSA did not consider that the correction of the false announcement made during the same news programme constituted an attenuating circumstance.