How Watching 'The Detectives' Affected Me Personally

How Watching ‘The Detectives’ Affected Me

I have watched an episode of ‘The Detectives’, a show that follows a child abuse case in Manchester. It affected me in various ways.

Firstly, watching the documentary, especially the part when the victim starts crying on the interview tape, made me feel quite sympathetic towards her experience and made me feel saddened that she had been abused in such a way.

I also felt sad due to the music that was played at certain parts in the documentary (e.g.: the victim crying on the tape). This specific type of music I felt was really emotional. This music also carried a sense of realism and expressed the harsh reality of the aftermath of this abuse.
 

Secondly, I also felt very angry towards the suspect who had committed the crime because he could be so cold and emotionless about the topic. As well as this, I was also angry that the abuser told her that no one would believe her and how he responded to the questions presented to him by the police.

Moreover, I felt that the music was trying to emphasise the overall dark tone of the documentary and made me feel highly saddened hearing it. This music also carried a sense of realism and expressed the harsh reality of the aftermath of this abuse.

I also felt quite disgusted that the BBC chose to add light-hearted and jovial music from the 1970’s, as the theme of the overall documentary did not warrant this sort of joyful atmosphere and I strongly felt that this was offensive and a blatant attempt to turn a serious matter into a light-hearted spoof.

Thirdly, I also felt quite proud and grateful to live in a country where the subject of child abuse is taken very seriously and where everyone is allowed to have their concerns and opinions about this topic heard by the authorities.

In addition to this, I also felt proud of the unique policing system in this country that deals with this specific topic and how their efforts are helping to bringing these criminals to justice.

Moreover, I felt that this documentary taught abuse victims that there is help and advice available and that it is easy to obtain. It also teaches people that you will be taken seriously and be listened to if you report a crime, especially one of this severity.

How Does 'The Detectives' Stick to BBC Guidelines?

How Does the Documentary Stick to the BBC Guidelines?

The documentary is accurate because it is in a fly-on-the-wall format that follows a major over-arching storyline and nothing that is displayed in the documentary is inaccurate.

The documentary is partly impartial, but at the same it is not. This is because the documentary expects the viewer to feel sympathy towards both the victim and the suspect, so in that sense it is impartial, yet it seems to focus more on the victim’s sympathy and the polices’ attempts to secure a conviction, so in that sense it is not impartial.

The documentary is quite harmful and offensive. The reason for this is that it informs the viewer of in-depth descriptions of a serious crime and then shows the suspect being questioned and the victims in a great amount of distress.

The documentary does seem to respect people’s right of privacy and does not include people who have not been given consent to do so. This is shown in the sense that they censor out the names of the people who have not given permission for their names to be broadcast on television.

This documentary also respects the BBC guideline regarding children and young people and their right to safeguarding and consent. This is demonstrated in the way that they choose not to show nor name the young victim of the crime.

As well as this, the documentary also acknowledges the Reporting Crime guideline. This is because the certain crime depicted in this documentary is in the public interest and also respects privacy. This is shown in the radio extracts that the crime of exploitation gained notoriety as the number of reported victims began to grow.

Also, the documentary respects the BBC's code of censorship because it censors out graphic details of the crime and does not reveal any unnecessary details which could hinder the investigation or damage the BBc's integrity.

Moreover, The Detectives also values the BBC's code of the 9pm Watershed. This is shown by the fact that The Detectives was shown on BBC after 9pm.

In addition, this documentary also abides by the BBC's humiliation code. This is shown by the fact that they do not humiliate suspects and rather simply let the police interrogate them.

As well as this, The Detectives documentary respects the BBC's Audience Expectations code. This is because the voice-over at the start of the episode states that the episode contains scenes and content that may be distressing to some viewers.

Also, the documentary repeats the BBC's Photo-sensitive Epilepsy code. This is because The Detectives does not contain any quickly-changing lights that could potentially trigger someone's epilepsy or evoke a seizure.

As well as this, the documentary also adheres to the BBC’s Editorial Guideline of Accuracy, especially the Misleading Audiences chapter. This is clearly demonstrated by the amount of depth that they go into. For example, with the archive footage and images from the 1970’s and explanation of the suspect’s fate at the end of the documentary.

 

Harm Test Graphs on Microsoft Excel

I created these graphs on the programme Microsoft Excel to show the amount of categories that there are for media classification, as well as how much their severity differs for each individual piece of media.