It is gratifying to see that the editorial staff at YLE is willing to admit mistakes and is now correcting the episode, although it is very worrying that criminalizing claims could be published without sufficient source criticism, says Head of Communications Berit Hustad Nilsen.
After answering all questions from YLE before the episode was published, BCC also asked for a number of errors to be corrected after the program was broadcast.
The editorial team at YLE confirmed this week that they have carefully considered the request. They are removing Oscar Floor’s false claim that the church was engaged in tax evasion and have made further corrections to the published documentary. In addition, next week’s program will contain a note and an online article informing about the correction.
Oscar Floor has been known to spread conspiracies and insinuations about BCC and several members over a long period of time.
NRK will also review its ethical assessments
The media have an important public mission and must promote honest and truth-seeking journalism. This is crucial to maintaining the role and trust of the editorial-controlled media in society. But when ethical assessments go wrong, it can have disastrous consequences for those affected.
Exactly three years ago, NRK Brennpunkt published an episode in which the portrayal of BCC was turned completely upside down and based on several of the same sources as in the Finnish TV program. Our members experienced harassment, bullying and stigmatization as a direct result of the episode.
In recent weeks, NRK has published and unpublished a documentary series called Ingen elsker Bamsegutt (Nobody loves Bamsegutt). NRK has announced that it will evaluate its ethical assessments in its documentary and society department. In this connection, BCC has asked NRK’s management to also consider the episode Guds utvalde – smiths venner (God’s Chosen – Smith’s Friends).
The story of how things went wrong when NRK Brennpunkt wanted to investigate BCC’s finances is well documented in the book by Dag Christensen. The Norwegian version can be downloaded from the Government’s website:
