Adjudication No. 1496 (June 2011) [2011] APC 7

The Australian Press Council has considered a complaint against coverage by Melbourne's Herald Sun and Sunday Herald Sun of the aftermath of this year's 11 March earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

The complainant, Eric Lucas, is an Australian businessman based in Tokyo. He complained that a pullout map in the Sunday paper on 14 March which "prominently showed that 1,000 people had died" in Tokyo was “false, baseless and was either invented or based on a confusion of Japan with Tokyo”. A similar map with the same note was published in The Herald Sun on 15 March. He also complained that the front-page headline MELTDOWN in that newspaper on 16 March was an “invention” as there was “no evidence that such an event has occurred or is occurring and appears to be egregiously designed to create anxiety and an elevated sense of crisis”.

The Herald Sun responded that the references to 1,000 people dead were qualified by the words “believed to be” which made it clear that the figure could not be confirmed prior to publication. It said the widespread confusion in Japan at the time meant newspapers had to go to press with “the best and most reliable information” they could gather at the time. When the headline MELTDOWN appeared the “Fukushima nuclear power plant was in the initial stages of a partial meltdown” and thus the word was “entirely appropriate”, the newspaper said, especially as it applied also to the social disruption at the time. The newspaper also noted that the complainant had not contacted the newspaper direct seeking to correct the inaccuracies he alleged in the map or headline.

The Council considers that the newspaper failed to make reasonable efforts to ascertain the correctness of its reference to the death toll in Tokyo. The paper was unable to identify for the Council any source for asserting the possibility or likelihood of a toll in the vicinity of 1,000. The Council is aware that at the time of the article several reputable media sources in Tokyo were reporting a likely toll of less than ten. A misleading report of this kind is a very serious error, especially as many readers may have had grave concerns at the time about the fate of relatives, friends or business interests in Tokyo. Accordingly, this aspect of the complaint is upheld.

The Council considers that the highly prominent and unqualified headline MELTDOWN did not fairly represent the position at Fukushima at the time of publication. It also did not fairly reflect the content of the articles on following pages to which it referred. The articles said: "Officials say they cannot rule out a meltdown" and "technicians remained at the plant to fight to avoid a meltdown". Given the major national and regional implications of a nuclear meltdown (unqualified by terms such as “risk", "fear" or "threat”), especially the threat to major population areas, the over-stated headline breached the Council’s standards and the complaint on this issue is accordingly upheld.