Adjudication No. 1032 (June 1999) [1999] APC 26

ADJUDICATION No. 1032 (June 1999)

The Australian Press Council has upheld complaints from Valerie Sturrock against the Courier-Mail and the Sunday Mail over an opinion column and a news report published on 12 December 1998 and 13 December 1998 respectively.

Both articles were about allegations that a principal at the State School in Drillham, a small town on the Darling Downs in Queensland, had sought a transfer from the school because of harassment and victimisation at the hands of the local townspeople. She was the third principal at the school in a twelve-month period.

The principal, Joanne Mitchell, had complained to the police at a nearby town (Drillham does not have a police station) that she had been subjected to threatening telephone calls, that people had bashed on her windows at night and yelled abuse at her, and that her cat and dog had been poisoned. The matter had been referred to the Teachers' Union and to the Queensland Minister for Education, Dean Wells, who had threatened to close down the school.

The complainant, Mrs Sturrock, says that the opinion column, written by a regular columnist, was "full of misinformation and vilification" about the people of Drillham, that it contained "monstrous lies", was "ill-tempered, biased and unprofessional" and was defamatory.

The Press Council agrees that the column was strongly-worded. It was headlined "Lesson of shame in town from hell". It referred to the "morons" and "intellectual dwarfs" who had used Ms Mitchell as a target for "their red-neck frustrations". However, it also called on "the sensible parents of Drillham" to ask why in the future nobody would want to take over "their school from hell".

While it is clear the Queensland Education Department had real concerns about staffing conditions at Drillham, some of the facts stated in the article are in dispute. The Press Council is not in a position to know the truth or otherwise of the disputed allegations. However, the article made no attempt to reflect opinion or statements from local residents which, in the Council's view, created a serious lack of balance; nor did the newspaper take reasonable steps afterwards to provide adequate balance.

The Press Council finds that the news story of 13 December 1998, which was otherwise a straight report of the claims and responses arising from the previous day's article, contained a picture caption ("Hillbilly: The school that expelled three principals") that was inaccurate and derogatory to an entire community.