Reporting Guidelines
General Press Release No. 15 (November 1977)

Accusations of Bias

Some misconception has arisen as to the implications of a recent decision of the Australian Press Council in a case from Western Australia on the question of political bias in a newspaper.

Other charges of bias have come before the Council and from the whole of its consideration of the subject the following points may be made:

• a newspaper which claims to provide a general news service has full freedom of editorial comment, but it has a public duty to provide fair news reports of matters of public controversy; and
• a newspaper has a right to take sides on any issue, but it does not have the right to resort to distortion or dishonesty to advocate a cause.

These principles do not exclude a newspaper from being partisan, although they exclude it from presenting a false picture. Within these bounds there is wide scope for the exercise of legitimate editorial judgment.

To police the exercise of this wide editorial discretion is an impossible task for a supervisory body to undertake. Even to attempt it would require a constant supervision of the performance of a paper. This would be beyond the capacity or intentions of the Press Council. Fairness in relation to the kind and amount of publicity that should be given by a paper to a particular point of view is not a matter that can be measured by column-centimetres or by other objective criterion. While the Press Council may be called on to deal with blatant and specific acts of unfairness in reporting, it believes that attempts to dictate in the field of legitimate editorial discretion would be inimical to the freedom of the press which the Council exists to uphold.

The Council commends to all editors of general newspapers the scrupulous fairness which has long been an ideal of their calling; but the responsibility of applying it must rest upon them. It is all the heavier because the detailed requirements of fairness, in the present context, cannot be laid down in any formula.

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