News in brief - August 2001

APC Prize 2001

The 2001 essay competition closed on 30 June. There were 54 entries.

The judges this year are Professor John Henningham (University of Queensland), Harry Dillon (Charles Sturt University) and Wendy Mead, a Press Council Public Member. The results of the Prize are expected towards the end of August.

Details on the winner and other awardees will be published in the November 2001 News and posted on the Council's website. In the same issue of the News, the Council will announce the entry conditions for the 2002 APC Prize.

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Geelong Visit

As part of its program of visiting regional and interstate centres, the Council will hold its September meetings in Geelong, Victoria's largest regional city. The meetings will be held on 20 and 21 September. The Deakin University Journalism School will host a Case Studies Seminar to which young local journalists are also invited. Additionally the Council will meet with editors, journalists, politicians and community leaders from Geelong and its environs to discuss local issues and the press. This will be the Council's first visit to Geelong.

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Submission

On 7 June, the Press Council made a submission to the Parliamentary Joint Statutory Committee on Corporations and Securities, on the provisions of the Financial Services Reform Bill 2001 and a draft policy statement issued by ASIC.

The proposed legislation is to replace the Corporations Act which is being repealed. As a part of the proposed changes, the provisions that exempted most journalists from the licensing provisions of the legislation were being removed and similar provisions were not being put into the new Bill. Any exemptions were to be achieved by regulations, rather than legislation. The Council joined with a number of media companies and organisations in opposing this change and made a submission to the appropriate parliamentary committee and to the relevant Ministers and Shadow Ministers, as well as to the Democrats.

As a result of the representations of the various media organisations, the Minister has subsequently announced that legislative exemptions for journalists and publications will be included in a redrafted Bill and that regulations dealing with those legislative provisions will then be drafted by ASIC.

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Complaints Statistics

The analysis of complaints for the year ended 30 June 2001 shows that the Council received 413 Complaints (up from 403 the previous year). The major grounds for complaint were inaccuracy, imbalance and offensive coverage (particularly in the past year a number of 'graphic' front page photographs of crime or tragedy). 65 complaints were adjudicated by the Council which issued a total of 42 adjudications (some of which covered more than one complaint). 16 adjudications upheld the complaint in whole or part; and 26 dismissed the complaint. 177 complaints were successfully dealt with by mediation or were withdrawn by the complainant during the complaint process. These represent over 44 per cent of all complaints finalised over the year.

The full statistics will be published in the annual report and be posted to the Council website.

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Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act

The provisions of this Act, referred to in detail in the February 2001 News, exempt from its purview media organisations while acting in their journalistic role. To qualify for this exemption, media organisations need to subscribe to a publicly available privacy standards. The Press Council has undertaken to develop such standards and has circulated to its Constituent Bodies a draft of such standards, which expand on the provisions of its Statement of Principles.

The final draft of the standards will be published in the November 2001 News and on the Council's website. Any print media organisation that wants to publicly commit to those standards can meet its obligations under the Act and qualify for the exemption.

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Revised guidelines

The Australian Press Council has recently reviewed a number of its reporting guidelines which are intended as general guidelines for the print media on the ways in which newspapers and magazines should approach the following matters:

• the reporting of suicide
   
• the reporting of drugs and drug addiction
   
• recall of goods
   
• reporting opinion polls and public opinion

A full version of the new guidelines were published in this issue of the News.

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Revised Freedom of the Press positions

The Council has updated the summary of its Freedom of the Press stances to reflect its recent submissions on privacy and on contempt. The summary of its various stances is published on the website (http://www.presscouncil.org.au/pcsite/fop/positions.html) and is available from the Council office. The Council is currently revising its position on cross-media ownership rules.

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Car Lovers Carwash case

Last year, a company attempted to use provisions of the NSW Fair Trading Act to restrict the ability of a freelance journalist to report matters about it while it was preparing defamation action on the same matter. The Council sought the intervention of the NSW Fair Trading Minister in this matter, as it viewed with alarm the use of the Fair Trading Act as a back-door method of seeking an injunction unlikely to be granted under defamation law. Partly resulting from the Minister's intervention, the injunction was not granted, and subsequently the defamation action has been discontinued. As the Council played an important role in encouraging the Minister's intervention, it is particularly pleased with this outcome.

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Website

The Council's website is regularly updated. The most recent figures indicate that an average of about 250 people visit the site each day. The Council is now considering a submission on the further upgrading of the site and on the development of a series of databases on which the Council's information will be stored.

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Case Studies

The Council has decided to survey all tertiary education institutions offering journalism courses to assess their interest in hosting Case Studies Seminars in 2002. The seminars, which simulate the Council's adjudication process using material derived from cases considered by the Council, have been used intermittently for a number of years. Some of the Case Studies have been posted to the website and the intent is to make the simulations available to all interested tertiary institutions, using the Press Council personnel available in the area.

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Mediations

The Council office tries to solve matters by direct contact with the publication concerned. This often leads to a settlement of the matter satisfactory to both parties. In recent times a second level of mediation has been introduced, enabling Council members to act as mediators after the publication has responded to the complaint but before it is referred to the Council for adjudication. Below are some examples of recent successful mediations.

• A report in a metropolitan newspaper inaccurately stated that a shooting had taken place in a specific house. Following intervention from the Council secretariat, a correction was published, noting that the shooting took place on the street, and not inside the house.
   
• A regional daily published a group photograph, incorrectly labelling the group as gay artists. The paper republished the photograph, with copy supplied by the complainant correctly identifying the people photographed.
   
• A metropolitan newspaper published an article on the death, while overseas, of an Australian citizen. The widow noted that there were a number of inaccuracies, and that her input was not contained in the article. The matter was referred to the Complaints Committee. During the hearing, the parties agreed to try a face-to-face mediation. The hearing was cancelled. A mediation was arranged interstate for the convenience of the parties and the Press Council mediators. The mediation successfully saw the parties agree on a follow-up article for publication, which included points the widow wished to make.
   
• Two metropolitan newspapers ran similar articles on the suicide of an Australian public servant. Among the names mentioned in the events leading to the suicide was the complainant's. The papers published the complainant's denial of any involvement. The complainant wanted the papers to apologise. A legal waiver was obtained from the complainant. Various offers and counter-offers were made in an attempt at settling the complaint. None were acceptable. The matter went to the Complaints Committee. It became clear during the hearing that there was still the possibility of an agreement between the parties. The hearing was adjourned while the parties, together with a Press Council mediator, sought to reach a consensus on a form of words for publication. That consensus was reached, and both papers published the agreed correction.
   
• A regional daily published an article on a government department. The article contained a number of inaccuracies. The paper admitted the article was inaccurate - it had accepted some information at face value. The paper published an apology, and also agreed to run a news feature at a later date dealing with the work of the government department.
   
• A country newspaper ran an article which cast aspersions on the management of a youth support group. The president of the group asked for a retraction and apology for the inaccuracies contained in the headline and its accompanying article. The paper responded, standing by its story. The complainant was not satisfied. Both parties agreed to try mediation. The mediation took place, overseen by a public member of the Press Council. At the mediation, an agreement was reached. The paper undertook to continue to reflect the aspirations of the support group; the group agreed to appoint a publicity officer to liaise with the local media.
   
• A protester against a development in a regional area complained that the local paper's coverage was biased. After discussions with the Council's office, the paper published the complainant's letter, and her opinion piece. She was satisfied with the outcome.
   
• A suburban weekly published ads for adult services next to the junior sports news. The complainant believed this was highly inappropriate. The editor, after discussions with her layout and classifieds supervisors, has moved the adult services section to a new position: the middle of the classifieds pages.
   
• A report in a regional daily on the duck shooting season upset a sporting association. It believed that it has been unfairly treated in the report. The paper published the complainant's letter, allowing it 500 words - 200 more than the usual maximum.
   
• The office has mediated discussions between a large quasi-religious organisation and an organ published in an ethnic community language following complaints by the organisation that the newspaper did not provide balanced coverage of matters concerning them. The newspaper has undertaken to be more selective in its use of news agency material provided to it about the organisation and the organisation has agreed to review the ways in which it provides material to the newspaper in attempts at balance.

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Moral Rights

Recent changes to copyright legislation, granting some moral rights to copyright holders, is discussed elsewhere in this issue.

The Council has been approached by the Institute of Architects seeking from it the issuing of guidelines directing the attribution of authorship to architects of buildings in newspaper articles which mention the buildings. It has responded in these terms:

... In [the Council's] view, your proposals are misconceived.

Section 194(2) of the Copyright Act refers to an attributable act in relation to artistic works. These include the right to produce work in material form and to publish the work. While we agree that a building is an artistic work within the meaning of the [Act], a photograph of that building (or an article generally about it) is unlikely to constitute a reproduction of the building or a publication of that building. In order to constitute a reproduction, it would be necessary for the reproduction to be 'substantial'. This is unlikely to occur.

Even if this were the case, section 195 AR of the Act provides that it is not an infringement of an author's moral rights if it can be established that a failure to attribute was 'reasonable in the circumstances'. In the great majority of cases this exception will apply having regard to the nature of the work, the manner in which it is used, the context in which it is used and the practices of the newspaper and magazine publishing industry.

For this reason, the Council does not consider any benefit to be gained from entering into some arrangement which generally required, or directed, newspapers and magazines to attribute authorship to architects of buildings.

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