Adjudication No. 1150 (January 2002) [2002] APC 5

Adjudication No. 1150 (January 2002)

A commentary by writer Phillip Adams in the Weekend Australian, strongly critical of the United States a few weeks after the terrorist attacks on the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon, angered some readers.

One such reader is Charles Littrell, of Wombarra, NSW. He is a member of the Australian-American community, and he complained to the Australian Press Council. His complaint raises issues of considerable consequence.

The Council was called on to adjudicate between the rights of opinion writers to enjoy freedom of expression, and the expectation of readers that publication of fact and comment should be honest and fair, with regard to various reasonable sensitivities, as well as the public interest in receiving information.

What Mr Adams wrote would have offended many people. It was no doubt calculated to do so. Mr Adams was, however, entitled to write such an article. The point for the Press Council was whether the newspaper, within the terms of Press Council principles and guidelines for press standards, was honouring these principles by publishing the article.

The Council cannot and does not determine the legality of any published material. It adjudicates on whether the publication breaches Press Council principles. Mr Littrell claimed it did. The newspaper asserted otherwise.

On balance, the Press Council has found in favour of the newspaper's right to publish the Adams article. This did not mean it found Mr Littrell's complaint trivial; at issue were contending principles of worth and public importance.

The 18th Century writer-philosopher Voltaire is credited with the celebrated comment: "I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it." This sentiment is at the heart of legislation in most democracies to protect rights of free speech and publication. Unlike Americans, Australians do not have an express constitutional guarantee of free speech. But it does have a tradition of trenchant commentary on issues in its press.

Phillip Adams is one of Australian journalism's most high profile commentators. In his article published on 6 October last year, Mr Adams provided a strongly-worded polemic as part of the world-wide debate that followed the 11 September terrorist attacks.

Little that was in America's favour was stated. The article piled condemnation upon condemnation. Some examples:

"The US fails to see that it has always been among the most violent nations on earth" ... "the so-called war against drugs which encourages white police to brutalise black citizens" ... "The US aided and abetted the political terrorism that killed Salvadore Allende and turned Chile into a charnel house" ... "3 million Vietnamese killed in a war that was none of the US's business". And ... "If Australia is to be a true friend of the American people, we must try to rein them in, not urge them on. The US has to learn that its worst enemy is the US."

Mr Littrell set out what he considered to be breaches of Press Council principles, including

• Mr Adams's comments about America were neither honest nor fair; and
  
• the article breached a Press Council principle relating to "lapses of taste so repugnant as to be extremely offensive to its readership". It was in the poorest possible taste, said Mr Littrell, to accuse the US (and by implication its citizens) in the same week as America was burying its victims of terrorism.

The Press Council is aware that, in this heated and internationally important clash of opinions, many American commentators have made strong criticisms of their own country's conduct, rather like the comments of Mr Adams.

The Press Council does not accept that it has a role to deny Australian newspapers the right to put such comments to Australian readers. The Council champions open comment in publications. The fact that such commentary may offend some readers, even a majority of readers, will not of itself bring a Press Council censure.

It finds publication of the Adams article did not breach Press Council principles and that there was an over-riding public interest in the issues and comment upon them.

Was Mr Littrell (or others) entitled to a response? The newspaper offered him the opportunity to send a letter to the editor (a total of 5 letters were published in response to the column, 3 of them criticising it). It was not prepared to meet his request that it "make amends" by offering equivalent space to a "proper US representative", pointing out that it had published much news on events and commentary sympathetic to the US and its people in the wake of 11 September.

Mr Littrell considered that letters to the editor could not respond adequately to an article to which he objected so strongly. However, letter columns are widely read, and the Press Council believes that in many instances (including this one) they meet its principle requiring papers to provide a reasonable and swift opportunity for a balancing response to offending material.