Adjudication No. 990 (September 1998) [1998] APC 36

ADJUDICATION No. 990 (September 1998)

The Press Council has upheld in part a complaint by Raymond Hoser against The Herald Sun, Melbourne, over a lack of balance in its letters column, following the fatal shooting of two Melbourne policemen in August.

Within two days of the shootings, Mr Hoser wrote to the paper, apparently on behalf of four bodies that he described as civil libertarian organisations - Whistleblowers Australia, Whistleblowers Network Australia, Australians Against Corruption and the Victorian Taxi Drivers League.

Mr Hoser's letter condemned the killings and expressed sympathies to the families and friends of the policemen. According to Mr Hoser "the letter was sent so soon after the shootings in order to pre-empt any negative and potential criticisms from persons who have previously complained about civil libertarians who allegedly are noisy and critical when police attack and/or shoot people, but are strangely quiet when police are shot at by criminals".

The letter was not published. The Herald Sun said it did not consider the organisations on whose behalf Mr Hoser had written as representative of the civil liberties movement. His repeated resubmission of the letter over a ten-day period failed to change the paper's mind.

During the weeks after the shootings however, The Herald Sun did publish at least five letters condemning the alleged silence of civil libertarians about violence against the police. None singled out any particular organisation for criticism, and the paper still found no reason to publish Mr Hoser's letter.

Finally, over a month after the shootings, the paper received and published a letter from the Australian Civil Liberties Union similar in content to Mr Hoser's.

The Press Council believes The Herald Sun was fully entitled to reach its own conclusions about the standing of the groups represented by Mr Hoser. The paper was under no obligation to accept at face value his assertion that they were representative of the civil liberties movement.

However, the paper was clearly willing to publish several criticisms of civil libertarians soon after the killings, knowing that it had at least one correspondent who was vigorously advancing a different perspective. Timely publication of Mr Hoser's letter (or, as he himself observed, of any other one with similar views) would have provided balance to debate on this issue in the letters column.

To the extent that such balance was lacking, the complaint is upheld.