Adjudication No. 179 (February 1984) [1984] APC 2

ADJUDICATION No. 179 (February 1984)

The Australian Press Council has received complaints, the first dated 5 January 1983, about the Moree Champion's coverage of the death of a young Aborigine on 5 November 1982 and associated events.

The complainant, Mr R. J. Buchhorn, was parish priest in Boggabilla at the time and a close family friend of the dead man. Mr Buchhorn, who has since left the priesthood, has a history of supporting Aboriginal causes.

Mr Buchhorn's complaints relate to the Moree Champion's coverage in both its news and editorial columns. He lists specific examples of his complaints that:

1. The newspaper did not present news and comment "with scrupulous honesty and fairness in both statements and omission and with due respect for private rights and responsibilities".

2. The newspaper did not treat readers fairly "by making fact and opinion clearly distinguishable from one another"; "by not mis-stating or suppressing facts which are relevant to the conclusions which it encouraged readers to accept"; "by not distorting or unfairly colouring news, either in the text or in headlines"; and "by making clear whose are the opinions that are expressed".

The newspaper denies the claims and defends vigorously the views and coverage.

The Press Council has examined a number of reports in the newspaper and has studied lengthy correspondence from both parties since the original complaint was made.

The Press Council's overall view is that in its news coverage the newspaper failed to observe proper standards of journalism, particularly in making fact and opinion clearly distinguishable and by failing to make clear whose were the opinions that were expressed. The story did not carry a by-line.

After considering the material supplied by the parties, the Press Council considers that the Moree Champion pressed its view as to an "outside influence" with a dogmatism which the evidence presented did not justify; for example in the following passage from a news column: "The Champion's questions have led inexorably to the conclusion that the events of Thursday night and Friday morning had their origins outside Moree." It was clearly a reasonable inference and suggestion to the appropriate authorities that there might have been an outside influence, but the information then available (which included the arrest of three local white residents on the murder charges) pointed to the possibility of origins within Moree. However, as the council has had reason to note in other cases, group relations and in particular the position of the Aborigines requires a special degree of sensitivity on the part of the Press, especially where the publication is at the centre of an area where race relations have a bad history.

The Press Council notes the newspaper did give prominent space to critics of its coverage. In this manner the newspaper acted fairly.

Overall, however, the newspaper did fail to observe proper standards of journalism in its coverage. These parts of the complaints are upheld.