Adjudication No. 1139 (October 2001) [2001] APC 40

Adjudication No. 1139 (October 2001)

A front page report in the Daily Liberal, Dubbo, which used coverage of a meeting held in Dubbo by Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson to fire broadsides at him, has been criticised by the Australian Press Council.

The Council upheld a complaint made by Pauline McAllister whose personal interest is that she is a member of the National Party, of which Mr Anderson is Federal leader.

The report, on 3 August this year, was headlined "Out of touch", though the report did not justify that headline. The secondary headline read: "Deputy PM accused of dodging the local issues".

This was certainly true, but only because the newspaper chose, in what purported to be a report of Mr Anderson's meeting, to lead the story with an attack on him by the local Labor candidate.

Nothing said by Mr Anderson was reported, only the Labor candidate's predictable attack and a "dressing down" by an Aboriginal leader who turned up uninvited in order to reproach Mr Anderson.

This extraordinary piece of reporting was the work of an inexperienced journalist, under the direction of an acting editor, since the editor of the paper was away at the time.

Mrs McAllister complained to the Press Council, under broad allegations of unfairness, about this page one article and about two editorials. Subsequently she decided to leave only her complaint about the article to be adjudicated.

The newspaper itself seemed in no doubt the article was not a fair report.

The day after is was published it ran on page one an outraged response from Mr Anderson under the headline Report slammed and the minor headline, Anderson launches scathing attack on our news coverage.

Mr Anderson was reported as saying: "I have been a Member of Parliament for 13 years and I have never seen such a distortion".

The newspaper also published letters critical of its performance, and it published an explanation by the offending journalist which was perhaps as unusual as his original report.

In this by-lined article he explained how he had been ill-equipped for the job. He wrote: "I let my inexperience and personal feelings cloud my judgement ..." "I was completely out of my depth" ... "The people responsible for putting the final story together were not provided with enough information to give the story proper balance. In short, what I gave them was a dog's breakfast."

The Press Council notes that the newspaper provided ample space and prominence for a speedy response by Mr Anderson and properly published letters critical of the paper's performance.

In most cases of complaint about unfair publication the Press Council might well hold that this level of response by a newspaper met the Council's criteria for adequate amends. But in this case the Council holds that the original article departed so far from the normal tenets of honest journalism that it was not enough to publish criticism of the article. What was called for was a clear acknowledgement by the paper of its blemished reportage and perhaps an apology.