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The Court of Appeals of Santiago confirmed a fine of 100 monthly tax units (just over five million pesos) applied by the National Television Council (CNTV) a Chilevision Due to the “biased display and protection time for children under 18 years of a note that relativizes the phenomenon and the consequences of the so-called ‘he who dances, passes'”.
The note in question was issued on November 9 last year, in the first days after the emergence of the new and highly controversial expression of social protest.
In a unanimous ruling, the Ninth Chamber of the appeal court rejected the appeal filed by the station against the sanctioning Agreement adopted by the CNTV with costs.
Chilevisión’s arguments
The appeal -referring to the ruling- held “that the note in particular shows that the situation described has taken place in a peaceful way and has been well received by motorists, who have decided to participate. “Also that” the character of the note, at all times, shows how society has been able to demonstrate in a peaceful way through the blockade of streets in some sectors of Santiago by the massive marches, in which the motorists who have been stopped in the middle of the roadblocks, have managed to pass, being cheered by the same protesters “.
Chilevision, indicates the Court, it also referred to “the temporality of the note, since At the beginning, this behavior was peaceful and joyful in almost all the places where it was carried out., Y only as the weeks passed were isolated incidents of annoyances from people, not sympathizers of the ‘social outbreak’ who expressed their anger at this situation, but who at no time did it become generalized as a violent event by those who cut the streets, less is the case of the note issued, since their broadcasts permanently differentiated peaceful protest from vandalism, representing a transversal vision and attached to the democratic rule of law. “
Then he stated that what was exhibited in the note “are facts of reality that originated spontaneously within the context of the social crisis that our country was living, so not informing the entire audience, could be understood as an act of censorship that would violate the basic principles of journalism. ‘”
The reasoning of the Court
The resolution of the Court responded that, “whether or not coercion or violence is shown in the misconduct of the protesters to passersby on the note in question, The crux of the matter It is not constituted by refraining from reporting ‘events that originated spontaneously’, which could be considered an act of censorship, but rather the way to report those facts“.
“It is unavoidable that, behind the note presented to the public, there are professionals who exercise the activity of journalists,” says the Court, and citing the Code of Ethics of the College of Journalists, adds: “Those who practice journalism are important socializing agents who influence the formation of values, beliefs, habits, opinion and behaviors of the different levels of society‘”.
At once, ‘Information in journalism is understood as a social good and not as a product, which means that the journalist shares responsibility for the information transmitted and is responsible, not only to those who control the media, but mainly to society. (…) The journalist’s social responsibility requires that he or she act, under all circumstances, in accordance with personal ethical sense and assume the role they play in the information transmitted “, sustains the ruling.
“Dictatorial and despotic overtones”
“In other words,” adds the Court, “the creators of the note are socializing agents with influence on the formation of values and behaviors in the different groups that make up society, among them, by the way and with special reference, minors“.
In this sense, it is challenged and sanctioned “the lightness with which the questioned note was displayed, without representing the effect and influence it could exert on the attendees, exhibiting as jocular and peaceful, a behavior totally alien to respect for others, with dictatorial and despotic overtones “.
“He who dances passes,” says the court, “It involves the imposition by a group – protected by the number and union of its participants with the same objective – of an involuntary procedure on a defenseless minority taken by surprise, whose spontaneity does not seem natural, despite their expressions when consulted “.
“It is here to reflect on the possible result in the event that the intercepted driver refused to participate, which is not exhibited in the questioned note, an omission that corroborates the absence of social responsibility with which not only those who participate in the situation in question act, but also the journalist (s) and broadcasters who construct the objected note. The denial of violence that later acquired the ‘peaceful form of demonstration’ is far from reality that professional journalists must exhibit in an objective and unbiased manner, “the sentence concludes.
