Preventing panic
- 14 Sep 07, 10:33 AM
The BBC News exclusive on Northern Rock receiving emergency funding from the Bank of England threw up some interesting broadcasting dilemmas.
Our business editor Robert Peston had the information well ahead of newspapers (although you'd never know that by reading the papers today, all of whom followed up on his scoop but didn't say so).
Announcing to an unsuspecting public that a major high street name appeared to be in trouble obviously ran the risk of causing depositors to panic and withdraw their funds. So we needed to ensure we broke this dramatic news in a responsible fashion. And, as part of that responsibility, we needed to explain the causes of the crisis in a way that audiences unfamiliar with financial markets would understand. (I won't try to do that myself. Far better to read Robert's account (or watch this piece from the Ten o’clock News)).
But is it the BBC's job to tell people to be calm and advise them what to do? We are not financial advisers and there are legal limits on what our correspondents can do in terms of offering individual financial advice. We judge it is right for us to report the reassurance being offered by the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority and our correspondents have offered the judgement that those reassurances are legitimate.
But it's not the BBC's job to tell the audience what to do with its money. Whenever we have commentary from financial experts on the BBC News website we always include this disclaimer: "The material is for general information only and does not constitute investment, tax, legal or other form of advice." Quite right.
Peter Horrocks is head of BBC Newsroom
