Adjudication No. 1364  (adjudicated August 2007)

The Press Council has upheld a complaint by Neville Beeston who alleged that the Bundaberg NewsMail exhibited bias against him in two articles and by not publishing two letters he had written outlining his concerns.

On 13 January, the NewsMail published a front-page article about the pending closure of a charity store run by Guide Dogs Queensland. It reported 'the unexpected news that their lease is up'. The CEO of Guide Dogs Queensland was reported as saying that, in a letter to the landlord in October 2006, she had sought a month-by-month lease extension, but had not received a reply until Wednesday 10 January 2007 stating that 'the lease would not be extended and the charity had to vacate'. The article then reported comments by Mr Beeston, the landlord, who said that the charity had written to 'terminate the current agreement and inquired about a month-to-month lease', but the charity had 'never followed up on their initial inquiry'. Mr Beeston told the newspaper that he had 'expected to hear more from them, but in the meantime we planned to re-roof the place'. The Press Council is not privy to the October correspondence and cannot say whose interpretation of its content and implications is correct.

Following the publication of the article, Mr Beeston wrote a letter to the NewsMail's editor reiterating his side of the story. The editor said that she had elected not to publish the letter because his comments had been reported in the original article.

In 20 April another article appeared, headlined Tears on grey day for dog painting, that described community reaction to the painting-over of a mural depicting a guide dog puppy that had long adorned the wall of the charity shop. Among other people quoted, a city councillor was reported as saying that the mural would have been 'nice to retain' and that 'It's hard to fathom why they have painted over it'. Mr Beeston complained that the article implied that he, as the landlord, had ordered or consented to the mural's removal, which was not true. He pointed out this fact in another letter to the editor which was not published.

The editor told the Press Council she had not sighted the second letter, but would be happy to publish a letter to 'set the record straight'. The editor said that the 20 April article was 'a feature-style report on the end of a much loved mural', that it 'was not aimed at Mr Beeston and did not mention him in the story'.

The Press Council considers that the 13 January article failed fairly to convey the circumstances of the charity shop's closure, stating that it was "unexpected news". Because the tenor of the article conveys the distinct impression that the charity was being precipitously evicted by its landlord, the article is misleading and unfair.

The article of 20 April incorrectly conveys the distinct impression that the painting-over of the much-loved mural was the work of the landlord. To the extent that the article made no attempt to ascertain who had ordered the mural's removal, the article was unfair to Mr Beeston.

return to
Adjudication index

[ return to top ]

Documents with the icon require the Acrobat Reader, a Free Utility from Adobe. Click here for more information.