Adjudication No. 1086 (July 2000) [2000] APC 21

ADJUDICATION No. 1086 (July 2000)

The Press Council has dismissed a complaint brought by Richard Carleton against a series of references, in articles in The Sydney Morning Herald, to the relationship between Zeljko Raznatovic, better known as "Arkan", and President Milosevic of Yugoslavia. The articles variously referred to Arkan as "counsel" to the President and as an "adviser" to the President.

Mr Carleton claims that these description give a false understanding of the relationship between the two men, thereby leading to a breach of the Council's principle requiring a newspaper to make amends for publishing information that is found to be harmfully inaccurate. Mr Carleton wrote to the newspaper shortly after the third such reference pointing out what he deemed to be an error. This error was said to arise from reliance by Geoff Kitney, the author of the article in the newspaper, on Arkan's business card. While this card referred to him as "counsel to the Presidency", Mr Carleton asserted, based on what Arkan had told him in an interview, that the president referred to was the president of Arkan's football club and not President Milosevic.

Mr Kitney, on the other hand, claims that the card given to him (but subsequently confiscated when he was deported from Yugoslavia) clearly intended to convey the impression that Arkan was a counsel to President Milosevic.

While there is some evidence to support the claim that the business card was intended to show Arkan's connection with the football club, the reference to "the Presidency" is ambiguous as to whether Arkan was claiming a political or a sporting connection. Whether or not the Kitney card and the Carleton card are the same, the reference may have been intended to indicate a connection with President Milosevic. Subsequent conversations between Mr Carleton and Arkan that were furnished to the Council take the matter no further, first, because it is not possible to rely on Arkan's assertions and, secondly, because all that the article represents is Mr Kitney's views of the matter and he was entitled to draw the conclusion that he reported.

The Council also concludes that the description to which objection is taken cannot be said to be "harmfully inaccurate". The precise nature of the relationship between Arkan and President Milosevic is not something that the Council is in a position to determine. However, there had clearly been a strong connection between the two men and the Council cannot see how harm flows from a reference to that connection even if it may not have been as close as is perhaps conveyed by the use of the word "counsel".