Adjudication No. 1251 (September 2004) [2004] APC 26

Adjudication No. 1251 (September 2004)

The Australian Press Council has dismissed a complaint by Jim Dowling against The Australian about articles entitled An Aussie's Fight for Fallujah and Front Line Fallujah: A Digger's Story which appeared on the same day. The articles dealt with a first-hand account of a named Australian soldier fighting with the US Marines to secure the city of Fallujah in Iraq.

Mr Dowling claims that the articles breached Council principles 1 and 5 in that the newspaper did not present the battle truthfully as a "massacre" of "hundreds of innocent people" and suppressed relevant information in order to promote "its own patriotic views". He provided examples of other articles which presented contrary views of the fighting, including the account of an Australian Aid Worker in Iraq, Donna Mulhearn. Mr Dowling's letter to the editor complaining about the article was not published and several emails, letters and phone calls went unanswered.

The newspaper pointed out: "This is a personal account by the soldier of his action during the battle" and that this was made clear in the article. The paper did not aim to present the "big picture"; other media coverage at the time (some 180 articles) explored the battle and the situation in Iraq from a wider angle, including the great loss of life in Fallujah itself. The newspaper asserted that the account of Donna Mulhearn was itself a personal version of the events of Fallujah.

The articles appeared as part of The Australian's overall and extensive coverage of the Fallujah battle and the Iraq situation in general. A newspaper is entitled to accept or reject a letter for publication based on its assessment of relevance, newsworthiness and available space. The Council notes, however, that a response by the newspaper to Mr Dowling's numerous calls and letters may have resolved this issue at an earlier stage.