Reporting Guidelines

Adequate response/letters to the editor
(May 2009)

The Australian Press Council has issued a guideline on adequate response, including letters to the editor. The Council issues guidelines from time to time. These are, in essence, amplifications on particular issues arising from the Council's Statement of Principles. The guidelines apply the Principles to the practice of reporting and are intended to guide the press on how it should report certain matters. These guidelines are not intended to be prescriptive instructions to the press but act as a series of advisories on the application of the Principles that the Council seeks the co-operation of editors in maintaining. A list of the extant guidelines (and links to them) can be found on this website.

The question of adequate response is a vexed one for the press and for the Press Council. The Statement of Principles detail two sets of circumstances where there is a greater onus on publications to print a response:

Principle 2
Where it is established that a serious inaccuracy has been published, a publication should promptly correct the error, giving the correction due prominence.

Principle 3
Where individuals or groups are a major focus of news reports or commentary, the publication should ensure fairness and balance in the original article. Failing that, it should provide a reasonable and swift opportunity for a balancing response in an appropriate section of the publication.

The Principles are accompanied by Note 2, which says that the Council interprets "due prominence" as requiring the publication to ensure the retraction, clarification, correction, explanation or apology has the effect, as far as possible, of neutralising any damage arising from the original publication, and that any published adjudication is likely to be seen by those who saw the material on which the complaint was based.

In the light of the adoption of Note 2 to the Principles, the Council sees no need for a detailed guideline on adequate response at this stage. It will generally interpret a publication's actions on the basis of whether the printed response has been prompt and prominent enough to neutralise any damage that may have arisen.

Nonetheless, the Council notes the following issues that may affect the judgment as to what is an adequate response to a serious inaccuracy or a singling out for comment.

1. The Council's existing policy is to encourage publications to have a regular place in the publication, or on its website, where corrections, clarifications and apologies are published.
    
2. The Council encourages publications to print follow-up material, whether in the form of articles or letters to the editor, in cases where there is a significant difference of opinion or where an individual or group has been the major focus of a report or a commentary.
    
3. The Council accepts that a published letter to the editor will not always be an adequate response to a published inaccuracy and that many readers will want to see the publication itself correct the inaccuracy. However, in respect of letters to the editor, the Council has said in the past that:
   
   
   1. Editors are not obliged to publish letters on demand. It is their responsibility, guided by fairness, balance and the public interest in the views submitted by correspondents to select and, where necessary, edit letters for publication.
       
   2. The editor's prerogative includes the editing of letters for space, grammar or legal reasons, although such editing should not change the meaning or tenor of a letter.
       
   3. Where significant changes are made to the letter, the correspondent should be advised of the proposed changes before publication.

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Index of guidelines

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