Adjudication No. 206 (October 1984) [1984] APC 29

ADJUDICATION No. 206 (October 1984)

In a series of letters to the Press Council in July 1984, Mr Wiseman maintained that The Age was suppressing the strength of public support for Professor Geoffrey Blainey's views on immigration by refusing to publish letters supporting Professor Blainey and by failing to publish the results of a Morgan Gallup poll commissioned by another publication and released on 17 July.

The editor of The Age replied that it was not the function of the Letters to the Editor to balance one case against another, but rather to publish representative views expressed by readers. He pointed out that shortly after Professor Blainey's original statement The Age had published an extensive review of reader reaction, giving prominence to support for Professor Blainey. It had later published letters expressing a variety of views on the issue, including letters supporting Professor Blainey before Mr Wiseman's complaint. On 28 July it published one from Mr Wiseman himself. In selecting letters for publication a paper is entitled to have regard to quality and to variety of views as well as to mere numbers.

In relation to the poll, a newspaper cannot simply publish a poll in which another holds the copyright, although it can within limits refer to it as part of the news. What weight it gives to a particular poll as a news item must to a large extent be a matter of editorial discretion. Although the paper did not initially refer to the poll, it did publish Mr Wiseman's letter referring to it. Mr Wiseman's letter was published after a complaint by Mr Wiseman, but while the debate was still very much alive. Even if, as Mr Wiseman contends but we do not accept, it was published in response to his complaint, this would only have been to the paper's credit.

Mr Wiseman's complaint that The Age suppressed the existence of support for Professor Blainey is dismissed.