Adjudication No. 109 (August 1981) [1981] APC 22

ADJUDICATION No. 109 (August 1981)

The People for Alcohol Concern and Education, through the organisation's executive officer, Mr John Williams, has complained to the Australian Press Council about articles on random breath tests published by The News, Adelaide, and specifically about an article published on June 3, 1981.

The article, headed "In the breath test state, road toll is up", questioned the desirability of introducing random breath tests in South Australia when road deaths in Victoria, a random breath test state, had risen 15 per cent in the first five months of this year compared with the first five months of last year. The article pointed out that random breath testing had been introduced in Victoria in July 1976. The article did not give the annual Victorian road death figures for the period between the introduction of random tests and the end of 1979. Nor did it give the annual figure for 1980.

The complainant says the article misrepresented the Victorian situation by failing to give these figures or to point out that Victorian road deaths had in fact declined over the whole of this period.

He says of the articles generally that they presented only one side of the case.

The complainant also claims that the person responsible for the articles on random breath tests was the newspaper's wine writer and says claims had been made in a TV program that this person also edited a retail liquor industry publication. If this were so, the newspaper should have indicated it to its readers, he says.

In reply, Mr Brian Hogben, group general manager editorial of News Limited, publisher of the newspaper, says the article was an opinion piece and was clearly labelled as such. He maintains that the newspaper presented the news about random breath testing and its efficacy in a responsible way and that it had a right to express its opinion.

The Press Council fully supports every newspaper's right to express its opinions, and in this case to express opposition to random breath tests. This right is basic to the existence of a free Press and, indeed, the Press Council has made this clear in its statement of principles. However, the statement also makes it clear that a newspaper, in exercising this right, must treat its readers fairly by not mis-stating or suppressing facts which are relevant to conclusions which it encourages readers to accept.

In this case, the council considers that the Victorian road death figures for the several years from the introduction of random breath tests in Victoria until the end of 1980 were relevant to the issue and should have been included in the article. Because of the longer period involved, these figures are likely to have been far more meaningful than the figures used. Most important, they showed a significant decline in road deaths -- the council has confirmed that they fell from 954 in 1977 to 663 in 1980 -- whereas those for the five-month period, which the article relied upon, showed an increase. The five-month figures could also be misleading because 1980 was a year in which Victorian road deaths had declined far more than in the previous years. To compare five months of 1981 with five months of 1980 without looking also at the previous year's figures could well have provided a misleading picture. It was not surprising that comparing figures with such a good year as 1980 showed an increase.

The absence of the wider figures from the article could well have left readers with the incorrect impression that road deaths in Victoria had continued to increase since the introduction of random tests. In fact, over the whole period there had been a sizeable decline. The council upholds this complaint.

On the claim that the person responsible for the articles was a wine writer and edited a liquor publication, the council is not in a position to say whether this was the case or not. However, the council considers as a matter of principle that where any potential conflicts of interest may exist, newspapers should declare them.