Media regulators in the United Kingdom have cleared Sky News for choosing to air video footage of a police officer who was murdered when satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo was attacked in Paris in January.
Sky News was under investigation by Ofcom, the communications regulator in the UK, after it aired amateur footage taken by a witness of the police officer being shot on Jan. 7,
The Guardian is reporting.
The French police officer, Ahmed Merabet, was murdered in the street outside the
Charlie Hebdo headquarters. Sky News showed the video of him getting shot, but removed the final shot to his head.
Ofcom was mainly concerned about the time of day that the video was aired — before 9 p.m., which could be a violation of broadcasting rules.
The fact that Sky News edited out the final shot, led the regulator to conclude that the media outlet had "appropriately limited" the footage to make sure that the police officer's actual death was not shown.
"Ofcom carefully investigated Sky News' coverage of the shootings in Paris, which included edited footage of the murder of a police officer," said a spokesman for Ofcom.
"We found that the channel did not breach broadcasting rules. In particular, we concluded it was in the public interest to broadcast footage of this breaking news story, and that the footage was appropriately limited so as not to cause undue offense."
There were other UK broadcasters that were also investigated for footage aired in the wake of the attacks in Paris, which was considered "too graphic, insensitive and had the potential to cause religious offense."
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