How about:
Ensure the decision, or action, they are reporting on resulted from a risk assessment (i.e H&S) rather than a financial assessment (i.e cost of insurance)

It's a nice idea, but I can't see our newspapers buying it. They (some of them anyway) don't like H&S because their owners don't, and unless that changes we're stuck with bad press,

John

I agree with you jwk but it doesn't hurt to try to do something proactive about this issue even if it only has a tiny impact on the more respectable newspapers/journalists.

Having a standard list would also be quite handy for complaint letters from IOSH members or the mythbusters challenge panel.

Buzz, I guess you're right, it's better to do something than nothing. I think I'm feeling even more jaded about the media than usual after the various attempts by govt to dodge Leveson,

John

OK, so it seems that we have three points for decent journalists reporting on health and safety stories so far:

1, If the story is about something that was banned, obtain a quote from the person or organisation that banned the activity taking place. The explanation must go into more detail than labelling it as health and safety.

2, Ensure the decision, or action, you are reporting on resulted from a risk assessment (i.e H&S) rather than a financial assessment (i.e cost of insurance).

3, At the very least, distinguish if the story is HEALTH or SAFETY

All we need now is another 7 to make this a 10 point guidance document. So more suggestions please!

This is a public forum. If the press needed guidance, they could simply ask here.

I wonder just how good would be the quality of answers offered?

I agree with the sentiments of posts #11 and #12 but I am trying to come up with something a bit more specific and usable.

I haven't seen the article you mentioned Kieran. Will look later on my ipod touch guardian app.

Maybe this provides a fourth point for the list then:

4, When describing a health and safety decision, try to find out what piece of legislation or official guidance is being used to justify the decision. Furthermore, seek comment from a health and safety specialist (at least CMIOSH level) as to whether they think this is a responsible interpretation.

By the way, did you mean to say 'Working Time Regulations' in your post Keiran - rather than Welfare at Work Regs? The Working time regulations requirement that comes to mind is the one about having to have a minimum 20 minute break after 6 hours of working. May be this is for employees working less than 6 hours?

But of course, the entitlement (unpaid) for 'young' workers (many of whom may well be employed in these kind of positions) IS 30 minutes if shift is > 4:30.

Buzz

Though your suggested code of conduct seems commendable, I wonder how many journalists, if any, would bother to read it let alone heed it. The basis for my cynical view is that journalists are paid simply to produce stories (note the word stories...akin to tales and fables!) which their editors think readers/viewers will find interesting. There's surely no obligation for journalists to bother about accuracy or honesty provided that their stories don't blatantly leave them and their editors open to libel. Also it's been repeatedly evident in the UK that some journalists and editors don't even worry about libel - far better to reap lots of money from selling newspapers (and especially the advertising space in them) with spicy stories and then deal later with any libel claims which arise and eventually pay up if necessary.

If only more people would be aware that whatever they see/read whether in newspapers or on screens, etc. might be biased/slanted and not necessarily accurate or truthful. This applies equally to postings on this forum, hence my repeated plea that thread listings page 1 should include a visible disclaimer!

If Mr Lightyear - through obscurity to the stars, or was that the airforce? - thinks his 10 rules, or 'commandments', should apply to the press then ponder also on their application to this blog.

Would it not cease to exist almost immediately!

The proposals in #10, #11 and #17 might well fit a world in which all readers were 'middle brow' with rational flashpoints. Tabloid papers by contrast target 'low brow' readers with much more emotive flashpoints

'Middle + high brow' writer-journalists like J B Priestley and George Orwell/Eric Blair had the impact they had because they wrote in styles that were accessible to 'low', 'middle' and 'high' reader groups, yet also generally managed to write in tones calculated to resonate with readers with rational flashpoints.

The literary critic and polemist Raymond Williams coined the term 'Long Revolution' to describe the changes in society required for the readerships that Priestley and Orwell cultivatd. Richard Hoggart explained the associated culture in 'Uses of Literacy', though his work needs to be updated to account for the much more pluraist multi-ethnic condition of society since he wrote.

Buzz, journalists in the so-called liberal press (middle to high-brow readership) are just as prone to systematic, often unconscious distortion as those writing for a 'low-brow' audience. Don't take my word for it, just read some of the posts from MediaLens.org, which campaigns for compassion and honesty in liberal journalism. Journalists' distortions are shown to be apparent even in obviously life-and death stories such as those concerning Palestine, Iraq and so on (and no, medialens are not left-wing conspiracy theorists).

My point is that journalists like the positive examples Kieran mentions are pretty thin on the ground nowadays, most of them just peddle the corporate line, whatever that is for the particular organ they work on. If they'll produce deeply biased stories when writing about significant world events, then they'll certainly be biased when they're writing about what they see as trivia, such as H&S. Maybe the first step could be to cultivate some journalists who can be persuaded that not killing people at work is actually important,

John

This thread started with the observation about 'guidelines (that) are aimed at news rooms to ensure stories are balance and accurate.'

A report taking up about 15% of page 43 of The Guardian on 8 December 2012 indicates the core practical difficulty in implementing these guidelines, even in a 'middle brow' broadsheet.

Beneath a headline, 'Tax and staff contract rows could high Starbucks' finances', Robert Booth states that 'Researchers from Manchester Business School have calculated that public anger at Starbucks' payment of just £8.6m in UK tax over the past 13 years on sales of £3.1bn adn staff disbelief this week at being told paid lunch breaks, some sick leave and maternity benefits were being axes culd result in a fall in sales of as much as 24% in the next year.' He asserts that 'The prediction (was) based on a study of the effect of reputation crises affecting more than 50 organisations...' adding a quotation from professor Gary Davies, 'Our research shows that if a company's reputation declines internally and externally at the same time, sales go down quickly'

Mr. Booth's report is not balanced by any analysis by anyone; the only supporting comments are from a critic of Starbucks, a spokesman for Uncut.

What's more the accuracy of the report is practically impossible to check by anyone who doesn't have an original copy of the MBS report. As the quotations stand, they appear to be statistical forecasts in which the range of variance in sales 'as much as 24%', might also be equally validly stated as 'as little as 14%", depending on the level of statistical significance on which the study is based and which is actually not stated by Mr. Booth. An accurate, balanced report would certainly include such vital information.

What appears to be a reasonably plausible proposal about reporting guidelines reveals how in practice, where matters are contentious, claims unsupported by evidence are presented in such a pillar of virtue as The Guardian as well as other media.

Graham

As you can see, my comments explicitly referred to the opening lines of this thread in #1.

Your comments illustrate what Raymond Williams discussed in 'The Long Revolution' and Richard Hoggart in 'Uses of Literacy' over fifty years before Leveson's report and from a much larger perspective, not least for both those interested in balance and accuracy, and those less so as well as those opposed to these qualities.