Adjudication No. 173 (October 1983) [1983] APC 23

ADJUDICATION No. 173 (October 1983)

By letter of 7 August 1983, Mr J. F. Wilson claims that a poster used by the Adelaide News on 18 July 1983 was misleading. The poster was

LOUISE

$30,000

DEMAND

The news item referred to reported the trial of a person who had made a hoax demand for ransom in relation to the disappearance of the "Louise" mentioned.

The claim is misconceived. The claimant says in effect that in relation to posters newspapers are under two obligations. They may give notice only of "new news" concerning a matter of public interest, and the notice must give some indication of the "new" element. Newspapers are under neither duty. Their duty is not to give false information in posters, in particular not to engage in the particular form of falsity when a poster arouses expectations at variance with what the news item provides. But they are entitled to arouse curiosity by a poster which does not in any degree satisfy that curiosity, leaving it to a reading of the newspaper itself for the requisite information. And they are under no duty to deal only in new information; they may repeat previously published material, if on editorial judgment there would be a readership interest in such repetition. In this case, the news item did in fact give further new news about a continuing subject of public interest -- namely a trial connected with or arising out of the disappearance of a girl.

With more care, the poster might have avoided incurring any complaint, but it was a legitimate exercise of editorial judgment.