Adjudication No. 841 (February 1996) [1996] APC 15

ADJUDICATION No. 841 (February 1996)

The Australian Press Council has dismissed a complaint from John McNamara against the Sunday Herald Sun about the editing of a letter he submitted for publication.

On 19 November 1995 a columnist mentioned that his radio program had supported a gun amnesty which "led to the collection of almost 2000 potential massacre machines". Mr McNamara claims that the article damaged the reputation of "firearms owners" and, therefore, that the newspaper was obliged to offer him the opportunity to reply of reasonable length.

He submitted a letter for publication to the newspaper, "as a licenced, law abiding firearms owner". He said he was "heartily sick and tired of the constant media attacks on firearms owners". This part of his letter (together with some other references referring to the Press Council's Statement of Principles) was deleted when the letter was published in the following Sunday's edition of the newspaper.

Apart from a reference to the column, the following paragraph was in fact published:

[The columnist's] reference to privately[Dhatch]owned firearms as "potential massacre machines" brands every firearms owner or recreational firearms user as a potential mass murderer. I find this attitude unfair and offensive.

As the columnist's words were his opinion, there was no breach of the Council's principles in the publication of the column. As the part deleted does not seem fundamental and its deletion does not change the meaning of his letter, the Council cannot uphold the complaint that the newspaper unfairly edited the letter.