Why does your News Service contain some stories that seem offensive?

LightFM simulcasts the Channel 9 News every night and also broadcasts Fairfax News from 3AW throughout the day. LightFM does not have prior knowledge about the content of either Channel 9 or Fairfax News which goes direct to air.

Channel 9, like every TV News bulletin broadcast in early evening prime time, is ‘G’ rated - that is, the content is within normal acceptable community standards. Similarly, Fairfax News asserts that it shall “not present news in such a way as to create public panic, or unnecessary distress to listeners”.

Despite this, there are times when Channel 9 or Fairfax News feature stories that areat odds with LightFM’s Christian values. Such things as violence (eg. genocide; war crimes; terrorism; murder; and physical, verbal or emotional abuse), greed (private or criminal), robbery, fraud or other crimes are at odds with core Christian belief. 

However, LightFM also recognises that this is the world in which we live and our listeners (Christian and otherwise) still want to know what’s happening in their world. For example, the events of September 11, 2001 were of interest to Christians, even though they would feel very strongly against both the motivation and impact of these acts. Similarly, our listeners feel strongly about the Victorian bushfires or other natural disasters such as pandemics, tsunamis, floods or famines etc – and usually wish to respond accordingly by offering their time, services or money to help when such tragedies occur. Providing immediate and up-to-date news of such events often leads to a large outpouring of public help which would otherwise be missing if such news was not provided.

LightFM complies with the Community Radio Broadcasting Codes of Practice (2008), which states that “we will have programming practices that protect children from harmful material, but will avoid concealing the real world from them.”

Ideally, we would prefer to have our own radio newsroom. However, that’s a very expensive option and not viable at this stage of LightFM’s development. For now, it remains a hope for the future.