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Private broadcaster
shut down over plane crash coverage
On 23 October 2005, Nigeria's broadcasting
regulatory agency, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), shut down
the country's leading privately-owned radio and television group over
alleged unprofessional coverage of an airliner crash in which 117
passengers and crew members died.
In a statement announcing the shutting down of
Daar Communications Limited, owners of Africa Independent Television (AIT)
and RayPower FM Stations, the NBC said some stations displayed "gross
unprofessional conduct in their coverage," particularly "indecency and
horror from close-up shots of decapitated body parts." It said pleas by
top public officials and well-meaning Nigerians, as well as intercession
by the Commission, to "handle the sad development with restraint" were
ignored.
The NBC stated that the most offensive aspects
of the coverage were the "announcement, on location, that there could be
no survivors when the competent authorities had not fully assessed the
situation" and the "announcement that there were no survivors when the
families of the victims had not been informed, an international practice
that is observed in all crisis situations."
The Commission therefore ordered a temporary
shut down of the operations of AIT National and International stations and
RayPower FM radio stations "pending further professional assessment of the
status of their licences."
But Gbenga Mike Aruleba, the deputy general
manager (news) of Daar Communications, alleged that the stations were
being punished for challenging the official line put out by the
state-owned Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and because it criticised
aviation authorities for negligence in failing to properly monitor the
aircraft before it crashed.
He said the station broadcast the images from
the crash site in the context of misleading information put out by the NTA
that there were survivors and that its reporters had spoken to them, when
that station had not even located the crash site. He justified AIT's
action saying it was necessary to air authentic information which showed
the true crash site and the fact that there were no survivors in order not
to give the victims' families false hopes.
It is not clear what procedure the NBC followed
in deciding to shut down the radio and television station. The sanctions
procedure in the Commission's guideline book, the Nigeria Broadcasting
Code, requires that an erring station should first be served with a notice
and given a hearing before the application of sanctions. Paragraph 10.7.1
of the Code provides that "The Commission shall serve an erring station an
order to show cause why a revocation or a 'cease and desist' injunction
should not be issued." A public hearing should then follow the issuance of
such a notice. These procedures were not followed.
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