Adjudication No. 1030 (May 1999) [1999] APC 24

ADJUDICATION No. 1030 (May 1999)

The Press Council has dismissed complaints by Kym Smith and Josephine Michell against The Advertiser, Adelaide. The complaints concern the publication on 27 January of a picture accompanying a front page story. The story was related to cricket umpire Ross Emerson who gained a degree of notoriety following his no-balling of Sri Lankan cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan for throwing.

The picture showed Mr Emerson standing on the footpath apparently waiting for a taxi to take him to the airport. The accompanying caption to the picture referred to Mr Emerson "leaving his Hindley St hotel ...". Prominently appearing in the background of the picture was a sign "CLUB X" and, in some editions, a partly obscured but readable "Adult Centre". In the first edition of the paper Mr Emerson's hotel was named but the second and later editions omitted this reference. The complainants assert that the sign would be taken by readers to refer to the place where Mr Emerson was staying.

The newspaper said that the picture had been cropped to fit the page and that to have omitted the background would also have required the cropping from the picture of Mr Emerson's luggage.

The Council finds that there was nothing in the article to justify the inference that Mr Emerson's accommodation was in some way associated with the Club X.