Mersey Reporter - #Merseybites #News

CLICKBAIT news by a real news organization should never be used, especially if it exploits a child being injured. Today, Cllr Ian Maher, who is the Leader of Sefton Council, has condemned the sharing of a harrowing video relating to an injured child by some of the national and regional press.

Cllr Ian Maher has said:- “It is sickening enough to learn this video is being shared on social media and via messaging apps, but to see supposedly reputable media organisations making it available for wider viewing is reprehensible. My thoughts are first and foremost with the young boy who was injured in this shocking accident and his family, who are obviously distraught and upset enough. To now be further faced with this despicable and gross act of shameless publicity is frankly vile. I want to put on record my condemnation of Reach PLC, and the Liverpool Echo, for taking the editorial decision to share this footage and I sincerely hope others will join me in jointly calling on them to remove this video from their platforms. Sefton Council was not made aware of the Liverpool Echo's decision to publish this footage and had we been, we would have strongly urged them to reconsider. I would like to thank the number of responsible and creditable media agencies who have taken the correct decision to not publish this footage. Sefton Council continues to offer its full support to the family involved, as well as the business who are also affected by this deeply upsetting accident."

Our Editor, Patrick Trollope, has also added:- "As press, regulated under IMPRESS, we have a duty of care to protect the public, but also to highlight things that need to be investigated. It is a very fine line at times, but in this case, we strongly agree with Sefton Council. As a media organisation, we are also shocked to see that such a decision was taken. We do not normally comment on issues with other publications, but we have been asked by members of the public about this and also asked why we have done it. We would like to make it VERY CLEAR, we are not part of the Echo publication, nor the Reach PLC group. We strongly condemn the move by them to publish this video, especially in the way they did it. Even if a video of something like this is on social media, this video serves no purpose other than acting as clickbait. It is what gives the media a bad reputation and drives down trust."

We can confirm that the video has now been taken down from the websites owned by Reach PLC. If you do have any images or video of the incident you can use this link to contact Merseyside Police, who are investigating the incident. They will pass the information on to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) who can then use the images or video footage you may have captured of what happened to help see if anything can be done to prevent issues like this in the future. This is a standard procedure and is nothing out of the ordinary.

PLEASE DO NOT POST VIDEOS OR IMAGES LIKE THIS ON SOCIAL MEDIA, OR IN PRINT!