Adjudication No. 689 (November 1993) [1993] APC 81

ADJUDICATION No. 689 (November 1993)

The Australian Press Council has dismissed a complaint against the Twin Cities Post, Albury, about its failure to publish a letter to the editor.

Mr W Buckingham, of Albury, wrote to the editor of the newspaper a letter decrying what he described as "an emotional populist campaign" against feral cats. Mr Buckingham provided estimates of predator and mammal prey populations combined with likely breeding rates to support his argument that feral cats exist in just the right numbers to maintain viable populations among their prey species.

This letter was published. However, three weeks later the newspaper published a letter in reply from a Dr P I Boon, also of Albury, rebutting Mr Buckingham's contention and disputing the statistics on which it was based. Dr Boon's letter contained strong and, at times, scornful language.

Mr Buckingham took Dr Boon's letter as a personal attack and wrote another letter to the newspaper in reply to Dr Boon's response.

This letter was not published. After inquiries about the likelihood of the letter ever being published proved unsatisfactory, Mr Buckingam warned the newspaper that he would take his complaint to the Press Council which he duly did.

The managing editor of the newspaper told the Press Council he had given careful consideration to the wording of Dr Boon's letter and made the judgment that, while the response was strong and colourful, it was a "fair and reasonable response to an emotive topic Mr Buckingham had chosen to take into the public arena".

He was concerned that publication of a further letter from Mr Buckingham "would cause the issue to degenerate into an on-going dispute between Mr Buckingham and Dr Boon".

In the Press Council's view that concern was understandable. The correspondence was initiated by Mr Buckingham on a subject he must have known to be highly divisive and likely to evoke a spirited response. He mentioned in his complaint to the Press Council that two letters by him on the same subject had previously been published by the Albury Border Morning Mail.

The Press Council finds that the two letters published presented a fair balance between two strongly opposing views and that none of its principles was breached by the correspondence then being curtailed.