National & international emergencies
In the early stages of covering national and international emergencies, including the reporting of disasters and major accidents, it is particularly important to source information. First estimates of casualty figures often turn out to be inaccurate. If different sources give different estimates we should either report the range or go for the source which carries the greatest authority and attribute the estimate accordingly.
When people have been killed, injured or are missing it is important that, as far as is reasonably practicable, next of kin do not learn this news from any of our services. We recognise that when names are not given in our reports the news may cause needless concern among people with close relatives who might have been involved. But we believe this is not as bad as the distress caused when names are received for the first time, by way of radio, television or online.
We need to narrow the area of concern as quickly as possible without identifying individual victims, for example in the case of an air crash, by including details such as airline, flight number, place of departure and destination, to avoid alarming even larger numbers of people.
In a UK civil emergency, we aim to deliver essential information in the interests of public safety across all of our services. We work with emergency planners to identify the kind of major incidents requiring a special response. However, we must make the necessary editorial judgements to ensure accuracy and independence.
Further advice can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/connectinginacrisis/index.shtml.