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Showing Deceased Persons
Policy on Showing Deceased Persons
Images of actual decease individuals within any forensic, investigative or similar programming are prohibited. This DCL policy shall apply even in situations where for example, family consents have been obtained and/or DCL has obtained permission from the medical examiners and/or the deceased has been rendered completely unidentifiable. Instead, reenactments, dramatizations, makeup, special effects and computer imaging may be employed in order to illustrate such things as the science of forensics (“Artificial Imagery”). Artificial Imagery must not be so realistic as to appear as though it is an actual deceases individual or the intent of the policy will be circumvented.
The policy set forth in the preceding paragraph does not affect the manner in which DCL covers other types of programming such as historical events (e.g., the Holocaust), current events (e.g. wars), natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes) or medical health programming (e.g., programs involving the medical treatment of patients). These types of programming may, where appropriate in order to portray matters that are of important concern to the public, contain images of actual dead bodies. As always, out policy with respect to showing these real images will be in keeping with the highest standards of integrity.