RAI, penalty void for upsetting minors with war news report
For the Self-Regulation Code Enforcement Committee, the reportage was too bloody. The Tar annuls: excessive length of proceedings
The Regional Administrative Court annulled the sanction against RAI, guilty of having disturbed minors with a reportage, which had described the dramatic and precarious situation inside a trench hospital in a Ukrainian village besieged by the Russian army, which a correspondent had managed to enter. A report - aired on Tg1 at 8pm in July 2023 - that had broadcast 'bloody scenes of war such as to disturb the sensitivity of minors'
The sanction - decided in 2024 by the Committee for the application of the Code of self-regulation on media and minors and annulled today by the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio, due to violation of the terms for the conclusion of sanctioning proceedings - consisted in 'giving adequate publicity to the resolution in its own news broadcast during peak viewing hours'. The RAI had appealed, explaining, among other things, that the final measure had been adopted "at the end of a preliminary investigation that would have unjustifiably protracted beyond any reasonable duration".
Exceeded maximum duration of proceedings
And the judges considered the appeal worthy of acceptance precisely with reference to this censorship. In fact, the College "although aware of the existence of contrary orientations, is of the opinion that the deadlines for the conclusion of the sanctioning procedures have a peremptory nature, in order to avoid that the subjects involved remain exposed sine die to the inertia of the competent authority". Therefore, "the Committee's breach of the terms provided for by the Regulation (44 days from the broadcast; 195 days from the objection), even if extended as a result of the 2016 reform, results in a reason of illegitimacy of the measure, which must consequently be annulled".
Tg sanctions
In the past, in addition to the transmissions of the so-called 'pain' TV, the Authority for Communications Guarantees has also targeted news broadcasts, again for violating the Code for the protection of minors. Censored the services that have children at the centre of attention: from the allegedabuse in the nursery school of Rignano Flaminio, to the services on the "child soldiers", up to the film on the minor taken away from his family, forcibly taken by the police while he was at school.
