03.19.07

Charity bitten by watchdog

Posted in Feminism at 1:59 pm by Sarah

Note: published in the ST March 11th. Only posting now. To be honest, thought I didn’t do a great job on this but there is a good point here: the Cancer Society ads blatantly advertised their campaign. The BCI allowed the Trocaire ads to eventually go ahead (eeek!!!! split infinitive carry on Sarah) once the word campaign was taken out of the wording. Such bullshit. Seems to me like they insisted on the change so that the ad could go ahead and they could save face.

Cervical develops slowly. If caught in the early stages can be treated successfully. So a national screening programme, like Britain’s, would save a lot of lives in Ireland. Last year the Irish Cancer Society decided to make some radio advertisements urging the government to organise a free nationwide cervical-screening service. It submitted scripts to RTE which said they were too political. The final approved text included the lines “The Irish Cancer Society is campaigning for the urgent implementation of a free nationwide screening programme for cervical cancer. You can support our campaign by visiting www.cancer.ie”. The website hosted a petition which visitors were invited to sign which would eventually be sent to government.

The agreed ad mentioned a political campaign and invited listeners to support it. It ran on RTE and independent radio stations. The Trocaire ad which the BCI suspended last week never even mentioned its petition urging the government to implement UN Resolution 1325, aimed at the protection of women. Instead, against a soundtrack of crying babies, a voiceover explained that being a woman can result in deprivation and harm far more serious than having Aids or Malaria. The charity’s website address was given for more information or to make a donation.

Yet this ad was suspended by the BCI for being too political while RTE approved it.

Vistors to Trocaire’s website are invited to sign a petition urging the “Irsh and British governments to draw up viable national action plans that will prevent violence against women”. The Irish government has already signed up to that UN Resolution so Trocaire is simply asking for it to implement its own policies.
Trocaire’s ad was suspended by the BCI for being too political, while RTE approved it.

Why did the cancer society’s ad that mentioned a political campaign get aired while Trocaire’s, which didn’t, got banned? Indeed, why do the BCI and RTE have different rules?? The BCI, which regulates all commercial radio and television stations in Ireland operates under a 1988 Act thatt states “No advertisement shall be broadcast which is directed towards any religious or political end or has any relation to any industrial dispute.” RTE is governed by the 1960 Broadcasting Authority Act which says much the same thing. Yet the BCI says the Trocaire ad can’t run and RTE says it can.
What we have here is a bad law, interpreted and implemented in a random manner. When did charity ads become political? It seems like Trocaire and its Lenten campaign has been singled out. That the BCI defines the term “political” very broadly would be bad enough, but it compounds the problem with inconsistency.
It turns out that political does not mean Party Political. The law was designed to prevent Fianna Fail and Fine Gael or overt political organizations like the IFA from hogging the airwaves. However, charity has changed in the interim. It is no longer the benign and benevolent act of throwing money at little black babies. From Bono to John O’Shea we are learning that development work has moved far beyond financial donations. Whether it’s restructuring Third World debt or raising money for medical equipment at home, we no longer blindly accept that the poor will always be with us and nothing can be done. Something can be done and its politicians who must do it. This is the new message from charities, and yes it’s political.
The BCI and RTE can’t do much about the law, but they strike me as being a tad zealous in their application of it. The result is that advertising agencies and radio stations make it a practice to submit certain ads to each authority to check if they are acceptable. Last year, ads for a Make Poverty History concert in the Point Depot didn’t get approval and a Barnardos campaign appealing for a Children’s Referendum was banned. It’s going on all the time but like that tree falling in the forest, we didn’t see it, so we didn’t know it was happening. Thanks to the Trocaire incident, we do now.
Most of the time the two broadcasting organizations agree with each other, but they differ in one important respect. When RTE checks an ad, they examine only the text. The BCI examines the entire package behind the ad, including the advertiser’s website. While the Trocaire ad made no mention of their campaign, the regulators followed the trail of crumbs to the online petition.
As Trocaire subsequently argued, a substantial part of their mission has been its advocacy work. It has campaigned against child labour, child soldiers, and slavery. Why haven’t previous Lenten campaign ads been banned? The Trocaire website has a permanent “advocacy” section so why aren’t all their advertisements censored? The home page of GOAL, the John O’Shea led charity contains criticism of government policy. Why aren’t all GOAL ads suspended?
It’s because nobody asked the BCI about Trocaire’s Lenten ads before. The Commission doesn’t have enough staff to check every ad before its aired and depends on agencies and stations to send in items they think might cross the line. TodayFM sent in the Trocaire ads. Willie O’ Reilly the station’s chief executive has emphasised that it wasn’t complaining, just checking to avoid trouble later. If TodayFM hadn’t checked it, nothing would have happened The BCI might take a heavy hand when implementing the law, but only if someone invites them to.
It’s on this haphazard basis that the airwaves are being censored. Given that the BCI is implanting this aspect of its remit in such an unsatisfactory manner then you have to wonder how well it is doing the rest of its job.
They are supposed to control ownership of radio stations so that one person doesn’t gain a dominant position in the market. Yet Denis O’Brien seems to be picking up radio stations like some people collect sea shells.

The BCI should compel independent television stations, such as TV3 to produce Irish programming. A quick glance down that station’s listings shows there’s more UTV than Irish TV. TodayFM’s music dominated schedule bears no relation to the programmes promised at the licence application hearings when it was called Radio Ireland. Naturally, the government has washed its hands of any responsibility because the BCI is independent. But if a quango can’t carry out its functions, isn’t it time to give the job to someone who can?

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