Unwanted exposure
Companies beware: undercover reporting is on the increase. Programme makers will either arrive unannounced at your premises and openly film your workers, or plant an undercover reporter in your workforce and secretly film goings-on. What can be done?
To protect your company’s reputation, you first have to know your rights. Dust off your copies of the Ofcom Code and the BBC Editorial Guidelines. Separate rules apply to open and secret filming.
Programme makers generally need permission to film your company or employees openly if (as is likely) it infringes their privacy. However, they won’t need your consent – which means they won’t seek it – when they can show that the public interest outweighs the right to privacy.
However, it is only acceptable for them to ‘doorstep’ you – filming an interview without prior warning or consent – where you have refused their request for an interview.
Sometimes, they will seek consent from an employee or someone else without proper authority. In this situation, you should tell the broadcaster immediately that the authority is unauthorised.
By definition, you only find out about secret filming after it has happened. The codes only allow it if it is in the public interest, necessary to the credibility and authenticity of the programme, and shows material that could only have been obtained through secret filming. It can’t be used simply to add gloss and colour to a story.
Once you know that filming has taken place and is likely to be broadcast, ask the broadcaster how you and your company are going to be portrayed. If criticisms are going to be made, you are entitled to be given a ‘timely and appropriate’ opportunity to respond before the programme is aired.
You may want the broadcaster to include a carefully crafted statement putting your side of the story or to conduct an interview with your company spokesperson. You may also wish to explain your concerns about accuracy, fairness or privacy and to question whether the codes allow him to film as he did.
Damage limitation is still possible: the codes require the broadcaster to deal with you honestly and fairly. He may accept your concerns or he may not but, if he does, you may be able to ensure that some parts of the film are not broadcast and that your side of the story is more accurately and fully told in the final edit.
This article first appeared in our Litigation Annual Review January 2006. To view this publication, please click here to open a new window.
