Adjudication No. 1372  (adjudicated October 2007)

The Australian Press Council has upheld a complaint from Christopher Cooper over an article titled Doubts on 'miracle food' in The Sunday Mail, Brisbane, on 17 June 2007.

The article questioned whether it was legitimate for Goji berries to have the "miracle food" reputation that they were developing.

The complainant was referred to in the article as being General Manager in the Pacific for goji juice distributor 'FreeLife'. Describing FreeLife, the article claimed that it was a "pyramid-style marketing company, with new members signing up to become 'marketing executives' and receiving commissions if they recruit other people". It was this reference to the company being a "pyramid-style marketing company" that is the basis of the complaint.

Pyramid schemes and pyramid selling are expressly outlawed under the Trades Practices Act and it is reasonably widely known that this is the case. To label an existing business in any manner using the word "pyramid" clearly has negative connotations.

The Council believes the newspaper should have both checked its facts before printing such potentially damaging material, and corrected the error promptly.

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