Adjudication No. 1055 (October 1999) [1999] APC 49

ADJUDICATION No. 1055 (October 1999)

The Australian Press Council has dismissed a complaint about an eye-catching photograph published in the sports section of the South Gippsland Sentinel-Times on 27 July.

The picture showed a clay-target gun pointed directly at the camera by a 16-year-old Inverloch lad who had just won a championship with the gun.

Bruce Conn, of Inverloch, took objection. He complained to the Press Council that the picture sent "the wrong message" to readers at a time when authorities were trying to educate the community in the responsible use of guns.

The editor of the newspaper responded to the Press Council that photographs of this kind were common in Australian newspapers and that, while dramatic, they could not be said to encourage killings.

The newspaper had received only one letter of complaint about the photograph - from four local shooting safety instructors. It had published the letter and would have published a letter from Mr Conn if he had sent one.

Mr Conn based his complaint on the Council principle, which states:

"A publication has a wide discretion in matters of taste, but this does not justify lapses of taste so repugnant as to be extremely offensive to its readership."

The Press Council finds that the Sentinel-Times publication falls far short of the line the Council would draw on issues of taste. The fact that a reader finds something objectionable is not enough to bring Press Council condemnation.