Adjudication No. 625 (February 1993) [1993] APC 17

ADJUDICATION No. 625 (February 1993)

The Press Council has ruled that a newspaper's report of an allegation that an aerial sprayer accidentally "bombed" a school was not irresponsible.

The allegation was subsequently strongly denied, and it was eventually dismissed by the Victorian Agricultural Department. Nevertheless, the allegation was made and the paper felt justified in publishing it.

However, the headline was misleading in that it converted the allegation to fact.

In a page 1 report, "PLANE BOMBS KIDS WITH SPRAY", the Wimmera Mail-Times on 28 August 1987 said that the Agricultural Department was investigating a report that a spray plane accidentally "bombed" a Wimmera primary school and its pupils with chemicals. The report was initiated by a letter from a woman in the district, which was also published on page 10. The operator of the aircraft, Western Aerial Pty Ltd, which was not named in the article, denied the allegation.

The operator successfully sued for defamation. The Council delayed dealing with the matter until the case was settled. Another organisation, the Aerial Agricultural Association of Australia, complained to the Council. The association said that the newspaper had not taken reasonable steps to ensure the truth of the report; the newspaper was, it argued, prejudiced and biased against aerial spraying. For reasons which include the law of contempt, the Press Council could not rule on the matter until the litigation was finalised.

In considering a complaint, the Council does not apply the technical law of defamation; it determines whether the newspaper acted responsibly.

A newspaper cannot, in deciding whether to publish a report, apply the same standards of proof that a court requires. If it were required to do this, few matters of legitimate public interest would ever appear.

However, a newspaper does have an obligation to take all reasonable steps to ensure the truth of its statements. The paper says the question of aerial spraying had been a matter of grave public concern in the district for some time. When the editor received the letter in question, he checked it with the writer. She was known, he says, as responsible and community-minded. It was supported, she said, by her sister, who was too ill at that time to come to the phone. The editor says he did not know which spraying company was involved. In any event past experience in similar cases suggested spraying companies usually denied incidents such as this happening. He believed that the Department would have had nothing substantial to say at that stage.

The Council believes that the newspaper was justified, in the public interest, in reporting both the woman's allegation and that the matter was being investigated by the Department. However, the headline, 'PLANE BOMBS KIDS WITH SPRAY", implied the event actually took place; the article refers only to Mrs Headen's allegation and subsequent investigation. The Council believes the headline should have been qualified to reflect this.

Once the departmental investigation became public, the newspaper acted correctly in reporting this as well as the views of the president of the school council. However, the woman who raised the issue still insisted that the accident did happen. This too was reported on page 1 on 2 September 1987. In the same report there was reference to the Department's conclusions, and these were more fully reported on page 5. Apart from misleading headline the Council believes that the newspaper acted properly.

The newspaper published two more letters, one for and one against aerial spraying, as well as a denial of the incident by the president of the school council, on 4 September 1987. In an editorial in the same issue it repeated the allegation, pointing out denials of it happening were vigorous. "Whatever the facts, a significant section of the public remains unhappy and unconvinced, fearful even, about spraying of pesticides and herbicides near populated areas."

The editorial ended with an observation that "those new rules on spray application are overdue".

While the newspaper is entitled to put its own opinions, where a newspaper exercises this right, the need for objectivity in both articles and headlines is reinforce.