Reporting Guidelines

Reader-based lifestyle publications (revised December 2004)

The Australian Press Council has received complaints about magazines that use material supplied by readers and often ghost-written and published under the readers' name or initials. The complaints came from readers whose stories were published in this way, and who believed that there were inaccuracies or misrepresentations made about their work. They have also involved hoax material, submitted by people other than the so-called reader.

After meeting with the editors of the most successful of these lifestyle publications, the Press Council suggests the following guidelines:

• The magazine that runs a story based on written material supplied by a reader should clearly explain what it intends to do with any subsequent article. Often, the material is supplied by filling in relevant facts on a coupon. If so, it would be appropriate for the coupon to state how the material is to be treated and where it is to be placed. The coupon should also require the reader to supply contact details for verification purposes
   
• The magazine also should seek corroboration of the facts. If anything is contentious about the story, or likely to be libellous, the magazine should seek an affidavit from the reader and independent legal advice.
   
• When an article runs under the reader's name, a final draft should be supplied to the reader and its contents checked before publication.

The Press Council has found that, in most cases, a reader's submitted material is handled by a trained journalist who interviews the reader and writes a story according to the known facts. In such instances, running the article under the reporter's name should overcome most concerns.

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