Adjudication No. 1201 (June 2003) [2003] APC 17

Adjudication No. 1201 (June 2003)

Community group AidWatch, supported by some others involved in protests against the World Trade Organisation conference in Sydney in November, have complained to the Australian Press Council over what they see as unfair and unbalanced coverage by The Daily Telegraph. The Council has upheld one aspect of the complaint.

The complainants believe the coverage of the WTO protest failed to explain what the protests were all about; misled by portraying all protesters as violent; and was harmfully inaccurate in presenting quotes by individuals to discredit protesters and "delegitimise" their concern.

They say that the majority of the more than 30 organisations supporting the protests were committed to a non-violent expression of their concerns, but this was ignored in the newspaper's coverage. Their press releases were not quoted; nor were the reasons for their views and concerns given to provide essential balancing information for readers.

The complaint arose from a series of articles and photographs published in The Daily Telegraph, starting the day before the meeting, and published throughout the week of the event. The articles described preparations for the protest by both the police and the demonstrators; various aspects (and especially incidents of violence) of the protest itself; and its aftermath, including the police defence of their response, and charges brought against a number of demonstrators.

Most of the photographs echoed these themes. They included some striking images of a prospective protester wearing a balaclava and apparently holding a petrol bomb, and of violent confrontations between police and individuals and groups of demonstrators.

The Daily Telegraph says its coverage was an inevitable result of the preparations for, and realisation of, violence outside the conference. More than 50 arrests were made. While it acknowledges the legitimate views of many of the protesters, there were always going to be many others who would use the occasion as a vehicle for violence. This would attract media coverage.

Many of these issues are a matter for editorial judgment, and the Press Council affirms The Daily Telegraph's right to focus on confrontations between protesters and police as the news.

The complainants says the reports of violence were overblown; the published images do not support that view. Whether the violence was characteristic of the protests or not, once it became clear the violence and the efforts to control it would be significant elements, the costs and threats to public safety were a legitimate focus of reporting.

However, the Press Council upholds AidWatch's complaint about the imbalance of the reporting. The weighting of the coverage portrays all the protesters as a potentially violent rabble solely focused on causing havoc and disruption at a cost to the public. There was little attempt in the Telegraph's coverage to explain who they were and why the WTO conference was the source of their concerns.

During the Council hearing, several months after the original articles, The Daily Telegraph offered to publish a substantial article reflecting the complainants' views about the WTO. The complainants, however, sought an admission by the paper that its journalistic practice in compiling the coverage had been "unacceptable". was unwilling to make such admission, and the complainants therefore rejected its offer.

In the Press Council's view the presentation of such a one dimensional view of the protesters and their cause in the original coverage did little to ensure informed public debate. It only served to exacerbate the divide between many of the people involved, and mainstream society and its media.