Adjudication No. 687 (November 1993) [1993] APC 79

ADJUDICATION No. 687 (November 1993)

The Press Council has upheld a complaint by Mr Georg Geiger against the Bundaberg News-Mail about an article which he felt vilified Jewish people.

The article ("Very careful with money") appeared in a Saturday Supplement column purporting to be humorous, entitled "Razor Laugh". It consisted largely of four jokes and a prominent cartoon reflecting stereotypes of Jews as preoccupied with money and as victims of bad luck.

Mr Geiger was outraged by this material. He demanded a page 2 apology, in his own wording, in the next Saturday Supplement. The paper refused, but offered him space to express his dissatisfaction. The offer appears to have been declined, but "Razor Laugh" the following week included an explanation of the article which concluded:

"There certainly was no malice intended. It was all done in the name of humour. Sorry if it offended".

Jokes often achieve their impact at somebody's expense. The risk of their giving offence is heightened when they target people of a particular group. This appears to have been overlooked by the Bundaberg News-Mail.

Freedom of the press entails some capacity to accommodate wide differences in taste, humour and opinion. The paper's short apology the next week went some way to redressing the offensiveness of the presentation of the original page. The layout, especially the headline, was an incitement, however unintended to the crudest possible form of social stereotyping. Differently presented, the jokes themselves may well have not caused offence.