David Pollock, writing on behalf of the British Humanist Association, explains the BHA's objections to the relaxation of controls on paranormal and religious TV programmes. Eleven months ago, after wide consultation, the former Independent Television Commission issued detailed rules for programmes about the paranormal designed to prevent audiences, including children, being misled by purported clairvoyance, exorcisms and the like. This month consultation closed on a new Broadcasting Code proposed by Ofcom which would sweep away most of these safeguards, leaving only wafer-thin purported controls.For example, the current code says that when demonstrations of the paranormal are presented for entertainment, there have to be “announcements before and at the end of programmes to indicate their nature as entertainment, and appropriate acknowledgement of the existence of differing opinions as to the true nature of clairaudience and clairvoyance.” Ofcom want to reduce this guidance to saying that such programmes “must be clearly labelled” as entertainment.

In its response the British Humanist Association has accused Ofcom of “pandering to broadcasters who are greedy for susceptible audiences and the advertising they bring.” The BHA says that Ofcom seems to regard broadcasting “merely as an economic activity that it assumes it should promote rather than seeing it in its larger cultural and social context as a powerful influence that it has been created to control. It is symptomatic that Ofcom put sceptical quotation marks round the word ‘protected’ in their reference to children.”

View: Full Article | Source: New Humanist

That's just strange.