Adjudication No. 311 (November 1986) [1986] APC 47

ADJUDICATION No. 311 (November 1986)

The Australian Ice Hockey Federation complains of a story in the Daily Telegraph (Sydney) on July 28, 1986 which dealt with its attitude to the pending visit of a Canadian ice hockey team and reported strong criticism of that attitude by some club officials. The reporter writing the story rang the executive director of the Federation seeking comment. The executive director said that the only statement at that stage was "no comment", but that he would try to obtain comment from the President or Secretary, both of whom were interstate. The reporter said that he would ring back the next day, and that if he used the piece as it stood he would say that the Federation had offered no comment.

The Federation did not hear from him and was surprised when the story appeared some days later with no reference to comment (or no comment) by the Federation. It now complains of the publication of the criticism made by the club officials without any reply by it, or even a statement that it had made no comment, and of the reporter's failure to honour his undertaking. The paper has explained that the reporter tried to contact the executive director as arranged, but being unsuccessful, wrote the story saying that the Federation had made no comment. However this statement was edited out for reasons of space.

In the view of the Press Council, the strong criticism of the Federation made it proper to seek its reply for contemporaneous publication, and this the reporter did. He contacted the executive director on one occasion and sought to contact him again, and then wrote the story with the agreed "no comment" by the Federation. The reporter acted reasonably in the circumstances. The deletion of the reference to no comment by the Federation did not make the story any less favourable to the Federation; indeed it is difficult to understand why it wanted such a statement.

If the Federation wanted its statement published, it is strange that it made no effort to communicate it to the reporter. It is even more strange that neither when the story was published nor since has it offered its statement to the paper or requested its publication.

The complaint is dismissed.