Ask Charity Weblog

The askCHARITY team went to the Edinburgh TV Festival partly to encourage TV production people to use us. We got an invite because we helped UKTV with some research on Shock Docs, the genre of programmes about severely disabled people. There was a good turn out and an interesting amount of disquiet among the audience about these kinds of programmes. Justine Kershaw, who commissions such programmes for FIVE was robust in defence of them. She really believes that they are educational and that the vast majority are not freak shows. She was concerned that the main interviewees should not feel exploited. She had once pulled a repeat because the interviewee asked her to and had changed the title of a programme because the main interviewee was upset by it. Vicky Lucas, a media volunteer for Changing Faces, was brilliant in her criticism of the programmes - measured, intelligent and funny. But "Shock Docs" look as if they are here to stay in one form or another. Dan Chambers, Controller of FIVE, welcomed more ideas for them in another session. The two channels that have avoided them so far are BBC ONE and TWO. Maybe they have made a decision they don't want to?

Posted by Charity at 02:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

According to Media Guardian the major broadcasters have refused to support a DEC appeal to raise funds for Lebanon. Two reasons are cited - the fragility of the ceasefire and the political aspect of the appeal. The latter aspect is interesting. Surely if the people of Lebanon are in need of help with medicines, housing and food that is not a political issue? Does this mean that broadcasters will never support an appeal where the suffering is the result of a controversial war?

Posted by Charity at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In recent years there has been a trend for documentaries about severely disabled people to be shown on Channel 4 and 5. One of the first of these programmes - "The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off" - was about Jonny Kennedy who suffered from the genetic skin blistering condition Epidermolysis Bullosa. The charity DebRA helped with that documentary and benefitted greatly from it. Most people think this was a great and sensitive documentary but are less happy about others in the genre. We've conducted a survey about the programmes with askCHARITY disability/health/mental health contacts and with users of http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch a site aimed at disabled people. Many of those who responded were really unhappy about programmes like the Two Headed Baby, Human Mutants and My Child Can't Stop Eating. They felt that the titles and often the content of the programmes were sensationalist. Disabled users of Ouch! were much more unhappy about the programmes than those who worked for charities - the latter feeling that, though flawed, they were better than nothing. There'll be a debate on these "shock docs" at the Edinburgh TV Festival this Sunday. Click here if you'd like to read more about the survey http://www.vamu.org.uk/downloads/modern_day_freak_shows.pdf

Posted by Charity at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Joint Commitee on Human Rights is calling for evidence for their inquiry into the treatment of asylum seekers in the UK. One of the areas they're specifically investigating is the coverage of asylum issues in the media. Evidence needs to be submitted by 29th September. It's going to be hard to prove that human rights problems have arisen directly from UK media coverage - but it is your chance to log the worst of the coverage. From conversations I've had with refugee organisations it seems that the Press (national and regional) are the worst culprits. Will be interesting to see if the committee succeed in bringing any media titles to account. You can find out more about the investigation here: www.parliament.uk

Posted by Charity at 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)