Adjudication No. 931 (June 1997) [1997] APC 32

ADJUDICATION No. 931 (June 1997)

The Australian Press Council has dismissed a complaint by Cr Carol Gaul against the Blue Mountains Gazette, about an article that reported allegations of her disclosing confidential zoning information to a conservation group.

Cr Gaul considered the article was injurious to her reputation. She said its headline ("Gaul under fire for leaking information") stated categorically that she had leaked information, but that this was not substantiated in the article. She complained also that her response to the allegations against her appeared on page 3 of the paper, and not more prominently on the first page.

The Gazette said it had made every effort to cover all sides of the story fairly:

* it had made it plain that the article was reporting allegations about Cr Gaul, and not proven findings;

* it had clearly attributed statements of concern about her action to the Mayor of the Blue Mountains City Council;

* it had explained the significance of the alleged leak, and checked the status of a formal complaint about Cr Gaul to the Minister for Local Government;

* 5 days before the paper's publication, it had provided her with a draft of the first part of the article (including references to "leaking" and "confidential information"), allowing her time to challenge its veracity; and

* in the absence of any such challenge, it had published her response in full, starting on page 1 and spilling on to page 3.

Cr Gaul disputed the confidentiality of the information which she acknowledged providing to the conservation group, and denied knowledge of any Council action against her.

She wrote to the Gazette, seeking an "immediate, clear and prominent apology and retraction" of the headline, and implicitly threatening further action if the paper did not comply. Her letter was not published.

The Press Council believes it would have been reasonable for the paper both to have revealed the source of the complaints against Cr Gaul (who were not named in the article), and to have negotiated a less peremptory letter from her for publication.

However, these relatively minor omissions from an otherwise balanced report fall far short of a breach of the Press Council's principles.