Adjudication No. 874 (July 1996) [1996] APC 48

ADJUDICATION No. 874 (July 1996)

The Press Council has upheld a complaint by Shirley Jones against the Hervey Bay Independent.

In November 1994, a letter from Mrs Jones was published which was critical of several Hervey Bay City Councillors and their alleged lack of response to Queensland Audit Office concerns about the city's financial management.

Over one year later, one of the Councillors wrote to the Independent pointing out that the latest Audit Report had given the Council a "clean bill of health". However, much of the letter (published under the headline "Where are you Mrs Jones?"), was devoted to an attack on Mrs Jones, who was described as "motivated by maliciousness and cheap political point scoring rather than out of some sense of genuine concern for Hervey Bay".

Mrs Jones wrote to the paper in response, but her letter was not published. She complained to the Press Council that she had been denied the opportunity to reply.

The Independent claimed that the Councillor's attack had been in reply to Mrs Jones' November 1994 letter, and that "no other correspondence was required in the matter".

The Press Council considers that there is no automatic right of reply available to readers who disagree with correspondents to newspapers' letters columns. The Council accepts that publication of letters is a matter of editorial discretion, and that papers must be able to conclude an exchange of correspondence between dissenting parties which might otherwise continue indefinitely.

However, it is difficult to regard the two published letters in this particular case as an exchange. They were separated by more than 12 months. It is reasonable to assume that during this time, most readers would have forgotten the details of Mrs Jones' criticisms of the Hervey Bay Council, and would be in no position to judge whether or not the Councillor's attack on her credibility was fair.

In these circumstances, the Press Council believes the Independent should have allowed Mrs Jones to defend herself in its letters column.