Out-Law News 2 min. read

Tabloid's use of covered dead body photo breached Editor's Code, PCC says


A Scottish tabloid newspaper broke rules on editorial standards when it published a "graphic photograph" of a man's dead body, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has said.

The Daily Record intruded into the dead man's family's grief and shock, violating the Editors' Code of Practice (Code), when it published the photograph alongside an article about the discovery of the man's body on a footpath near Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, the PCC said.

The photograph showed the body covered by "sheeting" but "the outline of his arms and body could clearly be seen," the PCC said in its adjudication. The dead man's aunt, Susan Thomson, raised no issues with the Record's article but complained that its use of the image was "insensitive and had caused distress to family and friends," the PCC said.

The watchdog ruled that the paper had breached the Code by publishing the photo. Under the Code newspapers are required to handle publication "sensitively" in cases involving personal grief or shock.

"Newspapers are fully entitled to report on tragic events which take place in public, some of which - by their very nature - will cause distress and upset to family and friends. This will often include the taking and publishing of photographs," the PCC said in its ruling.

"The Commission recognised that the choice of photographs to accompany stories of deaths can be an extremely difficult editorial decision. The full context of the article and level of information contained in the image will generally be key factors. In this case, it agreed that it was legitimate for the newspaper to report that a body had been found, and noted that it had occurred at a well-known location, in a public place," the PCC said.

"However, in all the circumstances, it did not think that this was sufficient to justify the specific nature of the photograph. In the Commission's view, the outline of the body through the sheeting would have been visible to readers. It quite understood why this had caused [Thomson] and her family such distress. The Commission considered that the use of this type of explicit image did not meet the Code's requirement of handling publication 'sensitively'," the watchdog said.

The Code is a set of self-regulatory standards journalists should observe when reporting and includes rules on accuracy, intrusion into grief and privacy and secret recordings.

Press watchdog the PCC can 'name and shame' publications that break the Code and ask them to publish apologies, but it has no legal powers to enforce punishments such as fines for violations of the Code.

The PCC said it "welcomed" the fact the Daily Record had offered to apologise, but Thomson "did not accept the sincerity of the newspaper's apology," the watchdog said. Thomson had complained that her nephew's body was not "publicly visible as it was 300ft up on the side of a cliff, which, she said, led the police not to erect a privacy screen," it said.

"Tragic stories such as this raise difficult questions for editors, who need to strike the correct balance between publishing information about a death for their readers at the same time as handling publication with due sensitivity," Stephen Abell, PCC director, said in a statement.

"This was a difficult case, but the Commission ruled that the use of the image crossed a line," Abell said. He added that "editors should learn the lesson" from the watchdog's ruling.

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