英国广播公司拒绝禁播反撒切尔夫人的歌曲

The BBC Trust has rejected a complaint about Radio 1's decision to cut down Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead, which hit number 2 in the charts following the death of Margaret Thatcher, describing it as an inappropriate "celebration of death".

The 74-year-old song, which first appeared in the soundtrack for the Wizard of Oz film, made a surprise chart entry in April as a form of a protest by critics of the late Conservative prime minister.

Radio 1 elected to play just 7 seconds of the 51-second song, preceding it with a Newsbeat story explaining the context, following an intervention by then newly arrived BBC director general Tony Hall.

A complainant to the corporation argued that playing a truncated version of just one song was a breach of the BBC's guidelines on censorship and impartiality – particularly given a song titled I'm in Love with Margaret Thatcher was played in full – and that the track itself did not carry a political message.

The BBC Trust's editorial standards committee rejected the complaint, saying that the song did have the "capacity to cause offence" because it had been widely publicised as a way of giving voice to "anti-Thatcher feelings".

Radio 1's chart show was likely to be criticised whatever decision was taken over airing the song, the ESC noted.

"Aside from whether or not people had bought the song in order to express anti-Thatcher political sentiments, which listeners may or may not agree with, the song in question was clearly a celebration of death," said the ESC.

"Although it was not linked with to any real person when written, the committee believed that the song had clearly and unarguably gained association with Lady Thatcher."

The ESC said that it was "therefore legitimate" for the BBC to consider how it might cause offence, and that contextualising the issue with a Newsbeat story was the right course to "meet the requirements of due impartiality while mitigating the risk of gratuitous offence".

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英国广播公司信托基金拒绝将这首《叮咚！女巫已死》从第一频道移除。这首歌自从撒切尔夫人去世之后点击量激增，排到了榜单的第二名，这种现象被认为是对死者的不尊重。

这首歌最早出自74年前的影片《绿野仙踪》，在四月份保守派前首相撒切尔夫人去世，它出其不意地被撒切尔夫人的反对者们推上了榜单。

第一频道剪辑了这首51秒歌曲中的7秒来播放，在此之前有一个资讯采访解释了这首歌之所以播放的理由。随之而来的是对英国国家广播电视台新上任的总裁托尼·霍尔

这次事件的主角英国国家广播电视台争论道，播放这首缩减版的歌曲仅仅只是遵循该公司在审查制度和公平公正上的指导方针之一而已，如果一首歌如果被冠以爱戴玛格丽特·撒切尔的美名，那么是不是就该在电台上全曲播放呢？所以歌曲本身是不带政治色彩的。

英国广播公司信托基金的社论标准委员会

ESC指出，无论第一频道是否决定禁播这首歌曲，他们似乎都将受到抨击。

ESC说道：“不论人们是否把这首歌与反撒切尔的政治情绪相联系，听众都可能持有赞同或是反对两种观点，而这个争议颇大的歌曲是在庆祝死亡这一点是可以确定的。”

“虽然这首歌在刚被写出来的时候并没有针对任何一个人，但是委员会可以确定它与撒切尔夫人有联系。”

对此，ESC指出，英国国家广播电视台应该适当地考虑一下播放这首歌曲在多大程度上会冒犯当事人。并且应该在资讯报道中把这首曲子合理地融入播放内容，这才是“符合公平原则又不会造成毫无理由的冒犯”的解决方法。