Adjudication No. 1190 (March 2003)

The Australian Press Council has upheld a complaint against The Daily Telegraph brought by Dr James Goodman about a page one article on events leading up to the World Trade Organisation protests last year.

Dr Goodman said that the newspaper breached Council principles when it printed the headline, Guess where the people who protest like this are holding their next training session ... IN YOUR HOUSE, when it reasonably knew the headline to be false. He also said that the headline distorted the facts.

The article was written about a forum on civil disobedience that was being held in the NSW State Parliament and organised by Dr Goodman. It followed criticism of the event by the NSW Police Minister who was expecting widespread confrontations at the WTO event. The complainant is an academic at the University of Technology, Sydney, who researches social responses to globalisation and international activism. He said that the headline misrepresented the forum by portraying it as a training session for violent protest, whereas it was focussed on non-violent civil disobedience.

The Daily Telegraph responded that it was entitled to publish material that was balanced and fair to those represented.

The Council accepts that the article itself reflected different views about the forum. However, the combined impact of the headline, a photograph that showed protestors and mounted police at an earlier demonstration in Sydney, a boxed summary of a "recent history of unrest" that focussed on violent protest and the article's introduction which mentioned "violent demonstrations" was contrary to that balance. The effect was to distort the facts reported in the article.

Note: An appeal lodged by The Daily Telegraph was considered by the Council on 1 May. The Council dismissed the appeal.