Adjudication No. 1293 (adjudicated July 2005) [2005] APC 26

Adjudication No. 1293 (adjudciated July 2005)

The Australian Press Council has dismissed a complaint from Samara McPhedran claiming the editor of The Sunday Age, Melbourne, failed to exercise proper journalistic and social discretion by publishing a letter to the editor that included a paragraph inviting readers to associate hunters with paedophiles.

The letter, in the opinion pages of The Sunday Age on 27 March 2005, followed a feature article about blood sports. The letter-writer expressed a view that hunters romanticise violence when in reality hunting entails the flushing out and stalking of prey in an activity that thrills in the power to kill. The letter-writer went on to describe observing a man in a park covertly photographing children at play. Claiming the man quickly disappeared when he realised he was being watched the letter-writer remarked the man was no doubt another thrill seeker after unsuspecting prey. The letter concluded with a caution that we ignore at our peril the well-documented link between violence against animals and social violence such as rape, serial killing and domestic assault.

Ms McPhedran wrote to the editor of The Sunday Age expressing her view that the editor had failed to exercise discretion by not removing the paragraph linking hunters with paedophiles. She asked why The Sunday Age had seen fit to publish material that cast sickening aspersions about one particular group of people. The newspaper responded by publishing an edited version of her letter on 10 April 2005. The editor also sent an email to Ms McPhedran stating the paper did not "unnecessarily censor letters, within the bounds of defamation and taste", reiterating the policy of airing as wide a range of views as possible.

The Council notes The Sunday Age published a range of opinions in favour of and against blood sports. The editor's publication of Ms McPhedran's letter and his personal explanation to her by email were an appropriate response to her complaint.