Adjudication No. 432 (February 1990) [1990] APC 4

ADJUDICATION No. 432 (February 1990)

The Australian Press Council today criticised the quarterly publication, Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences, for refusing any right of reply to consulting psychiatrist Dr George Mendelson over in a journal article which contained criticism of his work.

Dr Mendelson complained about an article entitled "Not Cured by Verdict", written by Professor Robert Goldney in the September 1988 issue of the Journal. Dr Mendelson wrote a letter to the editor of the Journal claiming among other things that he had been wrongly accused of making misleading statements and having been flawed in his basic methodology of doing research -- serious accusations in the world of scientific research.

It is unusual for the Press Council to be asked to adjudicate articles in specialist, learned journals. But the principles of fairness and free speech apply as much to small circulation specialist publications as to mass circulation daily newspapers.

The Journal of Forensic Sciences' editor replied in writing to Dr Mendelson saying that his Editorial Board did not feel the letter warranted publication. He said, "The issue raised by you has been controversial. The Journal does not wish to enter into a dispute between you and Professor Goldney." Recently, the Journal affirmed that its opinion remains unaltered on this point.

There is in fact no evidence of any personal dispute between the professor and the doctor. But more importantly the Journal editor needs to be challenged on the other point; the implication that it would not publish a balancing letter simply because it was about a controversial matter.

It is fundamental to a free press that the pages of publications must be open to reasonable debate on controversial issues.

Equally, the press must always be sensitive to providing space to people named in articles who reasonably believe they have been wronged.

Adjudication No. 4322

The Press Council is in no position (and rightly was not requested) to adjudicate the fine points of the research and interpretation issues raised in the Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences.

But under its charter, the Press Council emphatically insists that the press must provide equal opportunity of expression for protagonists in controversies, especially when one side rightly or wrongly appears to have been maligned.

For this reason, Dr Mendelson's complaint is upheld and the Press Council encourages the Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences to consider printing a mutually agreed reply from Dr Mendelson.

That the printing of such a letter would be a long time after the original event, which would be a matter of concern to the Press Council in a general interest publication like a daily newspaper, is largely irrelevant in cases like this of a specialist quarterly publication.

Readers of publications like the Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences tend to file their copies away and refer back to them. The article complained of actually referred to work Dr Mendelson had originally published in another journal some seven years earlier.

Also of importance in a matter of press freedom such as this, the journal is read closely by the complainant's professional peers.