[cma-l] Profanity

[Olly Benson]

Hi Steven,

My experience (primarily from student radio) is that libel insurance is 
a waste of money, on three counts.

One, the insurance is based on risk.  The risk is based on the 
likelihood of your presenters saying something libellous.  Thus how do 
you calculate that risk?  If the risk is high the premium is high (and 
therefore a large proportion of your income); and if the risk is low 
then the premium is low (and arguably pointless).  Having libel 
insurance introduces a safety blanket for presenters; and therefore they 
become more risk-careless ("its ok, we've got insurance if we say 
something libellous").  Most student stations I worked with I suggested 
that it was much more cost effective to do appropriate training rather 
than take out libel insurance.

Secondly, the payout in libels is often decided based on the ability of 
the claimant to pay.  Thus someone with a meagre income would be 
expected to pay less than someone who had a large salary.  If you 
introduce the concept of insurance; you increase the figure you would be 
expected to payout in the case of libel.

Thirdly, no-one sues a charity.  The negative press would usually be far 
more damaging than the original allegation.  In all my research of 
student media, there was only one case of a libel action being bought 
and that was dropped prior to going to going to court.  I would be 
interested to know if there has been any libel action (more than a vague 
threat of words) against community media.

What I would say, is as above, train your presenters about what is 
libellous; and create a culture where a "could this be libellous?" is 
referred up to senior management to make a decision. We shouldn't be 
scared to criticise or highlight malpractice; but we should understand 
the risks and take them as we would any other risk management.  And as a 
management; understand libel and have a good *media* lawyer or senior 
journalist as someone you can use as a sounding board.

And bear in mind contempt; which I actually think is a bigger risk to 
community stations than libel.

Check out: http://www.rad10.com/news/so_sue_me/

On the profanity button... my personal feeling is that it is a waste of 
money to build it in wholesale.  If there are specific times when you 
think it might be important (eg coverage of a live event) then there are 
techniques you can use to delay the sound but again it's much better to 
build in prevention strategies than rely on someone remembering to hit a 
button.  I'm not sure how many stations still actually use delay.

Olly

On 21/02/2008, Steven Suttie <stevensuttie at aol.com> wrote:

     Dear CMA Members,

     I wonder if you can advise me on two important topics;

     1: What kind of Libel Insurance does your station have...who
        provides it, how much etc.

     2: Do you use a profanity delay system at your station?

     I'm looking at purchasing both and would really appreciate any
     advice.

     Many thanks.

     Kindest Regards
     Steve Suttie
     Station Manager, 94.4FM Salford City Radio
     0161 793 2939 (Office) 07772 355852 (Mobile)
     CHECK OUT http://www.salfordcityradio.org