Summary of complaint
We’ve received complaints from some people who felt footage of an incident at Manchester Airport was too graphic for broadcast or was repeated too frequently.
Our response
Our News teams always deliberate and think very carefully before including strong images in any report. In this case the footage was central to telling the story to help the audience understand what was known at that point. We decided not to use the most difficult pictures in the headline and when they were used on air it was described as ‘truly shocking’ from the start, to acknowledge that some of the images were upsetting.
In terms of the use of the footage within the programme, we are sorry if any of our audience were offended by the number of times it was used. However, given comments by the prime minister, Mayor of Greater Manchester, Greater Manchester Police and others, it was important the audience understood what was being claimed about the sequence of events that happened at Manchester Airport. In later bulletins we further adapted our use and description of the footage to help viewers. Â