|
Stephen Pate / The Daily Telegraph
The Press Council has upheld a complaint about two articles in The Daily Telegraph in August 2013 concerning the Sydney City Council. Stephen Pate complained that the first article, Clover wants ban on casino cars, suggested the Council and its Lord Mayor were seeking to ban all parking at Barangaroo. The publication replied that other parts of the article indicated the Council was seeking only to prevent an increase in parking spaces.
The Press Council concluded the headline and first sentence inaccurately suggested the Lord Mayor was opposed to all parking at Barangaroo, and nothing else in the article was sufficiently clear and prominent to correct this error.
Mr Pate said the second article, Electric car club a shocking waste, contained errors relating to Sydney City Council’s membership of a sustainable business association. The publication conceded the errors and published a correction.
The Press Council decided the publication did not take reasonable steps to avoid the errors. Read the full adjudication
|
|
Recent examples of the Council helping complainants obtain a remedy without proceeding to adjudication
Case 1
A complaint about publication of readers’ comments below a regional newspaper's online report of a memorial event for two murder victims. The complainant said that a comment by a reader claiming he had spat on the grave of someone who had been a person of interest in connection with the murder was unfair and should not have been published. She also complained that after she posted a comment to express her concerns, an abusive comment about her from the same reader was published and her subsequent response to that comment was not included. The Council contacted the newspaper, which then agreed to remove the two contentious posts and add an extended comment from the complainant.
Case 2
A complaint about use by a regional newspaper of a photo of a man in handcuffs to illustrate an article about court proceedings relating to the man’s alleged offences. The man who appeared in court said the photo was not of him and that he had not been in handcuffs. He said the photo had caused undue hardship and stress to him and his family. After the Council contacted the newspaper, the editors agreed to remove the image, publish a clarification and arrange staff training on the appropriate use of stock photos.
|
|
The Press Council has recently conducted a number of Round Tables in Melbourne and Sydney involving a total of about sixty invitees from the media industry and the broader community. The main purpose of the Round Tables was to identify issues in relation to standards of practice in print and online media of which the various participants thought the Press Council should be aware.
The comments of individuals were not for public attribution to them and did not necessarily represent the views of all or most other participants. Reference was made to what was seen as a range of positive aspects of the current media environment. They included:
• the continuing supply of high-quality journalism, despite recent staff cuts;
• the courage and impact of a lot of investigative journalism;
• the improved access and diversity provided by growth in online publishing;
• awareness by editors of the damage done by inaccurate or unfair material remaining available via search engines.
Many participants welcomed what they saw as the Council's improved effectiveness and profile. The benefits of developing further Specific Standards were emphasised, and it was suggested that the Council should conduct regular workshops on them. Special reference was made to the value and frequent use of the Press Council's Specific Standards on suicide.
Concerns were expressed by participants about a range of other matters. They included:
Inaccuracy
• a loss of quality due to sharp declines in the number of journalists who specialise in particular areas-declining standards of accuracy due to increasingly fierce competition to be first to publish on the Internet, even if only by a minute or so;
• unreasonable refusals to publish corrections or readers' replies, especially with sufficient speed and prominence;
• the frequent impossibility of entirely removing inaccurate material from Google or other aggregators.
Unfairness and imbalance
• frequent expression of publications' opinions in headlines on news reports;
• unfair and necessary distortions in headlines;
• failing to provide reasonable balance in a particular article or over time;
• a growing tendency for some major publications to become more partisan.
Intrusion and abuse;
• unreasonable invasions of privacy, especially of people who are not public figures;
• the serious harm that can be caused by publishing abusive or unfair material;
• unfairly using material from social media, especially when shared using private settings;
• excessive posting of abusive comments or unsupported allegations by readers.
Lack of transparency
• a growing tendency to mix fact and opinion in articles, often without making adequate distinctions between them;
• the dangers of allowing anonymous contributions from readers;
• failures to disclose conflicts of interest, especially in relation to business stories;
• growing tendencies for online publishers to repeat other publications' stories without attribution.
Other matters
• a belief that there is no point complaining about media coverage, and that doing so may make matters worse;
• the lack of readers' editors or ombudsmen;
• undue intimidation of people who criticise particular aspects of media conduct.
Further Round Tables of this kind will be held across Australia later in the year. Some will be broad-ranging and others will focus on a particular issue. These and other consultations and research will help the Council to assess the validity of views expressed at the recent Round Tables and what, if any, action it should take in relation them.
|
