Adjudication No. 108 (August 1981) [1981] APC 21

ADJUDICATION No. 108 (August 1981)

The Lower Tweed Teachers' Association has complained to the Australian Press Council of several articles published in The Daily News, Murwillumbah, about strike action by teachers. The complaint alleges a number of inaccuracies in the reporting of meetings, but these are not now pressed, and the complaint is confined to allegations attributed in the paper to unnamed parents of school children to the effect that the parents were unwilling to be named in reports of their objections to teachers' strikes because of fears that their children would be made to suffer.

The association claims that the publication of these allegations amounts to editorial acceptance of them as fact, that it reflects injuriously upon teachers, and that it should not have been made without an attempt to verify the accuracy of the allegations or to seek comment from a member of the teaching profession.

The editor has affirmed the accuracy of the reports and the council is unable to hold that the allegations were not made or that there was any impropriety in publishing them.

The council fully understands the indignation the teachers must feel when accused of a tendency to victimise the children of parents who speak out against strikes, but it does not consider that the paper was at fault in the articles.