Adjudication No. 1103 (January 2001) [2001] APC 4

Adjudication No. 1103 (January 2001)

The Australian Press Council has dismissed a complaint against the Warrnambool Standard ("The Standard") over two articles about secondary school students involved in underage drinking at an unsupervised party in a local park.

The complainant, Robert Coffey, is a parent of two students attending a large local secondary school which was named in the articles, quoting a named police source.

Mr Coffey complained that all students at the school were "unfairly tarnished by The Standard's reporting".

He further complained that a letter he had sent to the editor on 22 October had not been published.

This was the second letter Mr Coffey had written to the editor on the subject and his first letter was published in full, accompanied by an editor's note, on Saturday 21 October. The letters of two other correspondents also critical of the newspaper's reporting were published during the week immediately following the incident.

The newspaper published an editorial on 21 October in which it acknowledged that it had received criticism and defended its coverage saying that it "must attempt to balance the community's right to know with the sensibilities of its readers and what they actually want to know".

The Standard rejected the accusation that the reputation of the school had been damaged by its reports, adding that, if it had, the newspaper was not responsible for this.

While the Press Council accepts that such reports may cause concern to some readers, this was a major incident in the town about which the local community had a right to be informed.

The fact that the newspaper published, promptly and in full, Mr Coffey's first letter of complaint constitutes an adequate response on the part of the newspaper to Mr Coffey's concerns.