Adjudication No. 1345  (adjudicated February 2007)

The Australian Press Council has dismissed a complaint by Neil Jillett against The Age, Melbourne, about an aspect of an obituary of oral historian and author Wendy Lowenstein on 26 October. The obituary written by Lowenstein's son Richard, referred to an anecdote attributed to "The Age film critic Keith Connolly".

Mr Jillett said that he was film critic for The Age at the same time that Keith Connolly was film critic for The Herald, Melbourne. He complained that The Age's reference to Mr Connolly in the obituary carried the implication was that he, Mr Jillett, was not The Age film critic.

The newspaper said that Mr Jillett was a former Age journalist who served the paper with distinction over a long period. It noted that it used a variety of writers to review films.

Given that the first word in the phrase complained of was part of the title of the newspaper, it would be wrong to assume that the use of the definitive article implied that Mr Connolly was the paper's only film critic or indeed its senior critic.

Mr Connolly spent 11 years writing reviews for both The Age and The Sunday Age after his retirement from The Herald, the newspaper said. Mr Jillett acknowledged this but said that Mr Connolly had never held the position as "film critic".

The Council believes that the reference to Mr Connolly in the obituary does not breach its principles and dismisses the complaint.

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