News in brief - August 2002

2002 Australian Press Council Prize

Entries for the 2002 Prize have now closed.

There were 48 entries from tertiary students who each contributed an essay of up to 2500 words on the question based on the Council's Principle 7 which says that publications should not "place any gratuitous emphasis on, among other things, the race, religion, nationality, colour [or] country of origin ... of an individual or group. Nevertheless, where it is relevant and in the public interest, publications may report and express opinions in these areas." Entrants were asked whether it was possible to report, and properly comment on, the news with such a restriction? Is the public interest exception too wide?

The entries are now with the three judges who will assess each entry before consulting on the decision as to which student is awarded the $2000 prize.

Terms and conditions for the 2003 Prize will be published in the November APC News and posted on the Council's website.

More details are available on this website's Prize page.

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Submission

The Council has made a preliminary submission to the NSW Law Reform Commission on its Report 98, Surveillance: An Interim Report. The Council's final submission will be made in a few weeks, following consultations between the commission and representatives of media organisations which took place in Sydney in late July and which the Council's Executive Secretary attended. The submission will be published in a subsequent APC News and on the website when it is finalised.

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Brisbane visit

The Council's May meetings were held in Brisbane on 23 and 24 May 2002. During the visit the Council held a reception to meet with local politicians, editors, academics and community members interested in the print media. Dr Dale Spender, the Chair of the Copyright Agency Limited, addressed those present and her speech is published elsewhere. While in Brisbane, the Council held Case Study seminars with journalism/communications students at the University of Southern Queensland and at the Queensland University of Technology. Also, members of the Council met with the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Sen. Richard Alston, to discuss with him various issues, particularly those arising from his proposed changes to the cross-media ownership rules.

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Edmund Rouse

The Press Council is sad to note the passing of Edmund Rouse, a founding member, who represented regional dailies. (First meeting image.) Mr Rouse sat on the Council between 1976 and 1982. John Morgan, an editorial member, recalls that "whatever his faults, Edmund was never afraid to speak his mind with clarity and humour. The first time I met him, we had a steaming row - the next time we were having drinks. I liked the guy". Mr Rouse leaves behind a widow, Dorothy, and their five children.

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Freedom of Information

The Council's Policy Development Committee has been looking for some time at the operation of FoI legislation in Australia and its utility for journalists. To assist the Council in formulating proposals, an honours student at the University of Technology, Sydney, has submitted some detailed research on the use of FoI laws by journalists, with some reference to the views of administrators charged with its implementation. The Council will use this research to develop a policy framework for submissions to various governments on FoI legislation, supplemented by some detailed material from media organisations around Australia on their individual experiences with FoI within their organisations.

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Community Groups

The Council, from time to time, meets with various community groups to discuss issues of common interest and to let the groups know of the Council's existence and remit. With the assistance of the Victorian Equal Opportunity Commission, two Council members, Professor H P Lee and Sybil Nolan, met with members of the Arabic Advocacy group in Melbourne in June. During the two hour meeting, those present discussed the Council's activities and the ways in which the community could approach the Council to deal with their concerns with the print media.

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New booklet

In the light of the changes made to the Council's objects and procedures outlined elsewhere in this issue, the Council is reprinting its information booklet.

  The information booklet will be available before the end of August.

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Mediated Complaints

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. On rare occasions, a Public Member of the Council will convene a face-to-face mediation, by agreement with the parties. Below are some examples of the matters recently settled in these ways.

• A headline to a letter to the editor contradicted the contents of the letter. The country newspaper admitted the obvious error which, it said, was made by a sub-editor. It published a correction in its next edition.
   
• Despite assurances to the contrary, a suburban newspaper published an article critical of a complainant's business. The complainant took up the paper's offer, through the Council, of publishing an interview-based article, giving him the opportunity of putting his side of the story.
   
• A metropolitan newspaper published an article on political rorts. The complainant was one of the subjects of the article. The parties to the complaint agreed to the publication of a letter to the editor by the complainant, addressing her side to the story. The letter was published, with an editor's note appended which read, "This letter concludes a Press Council complaint".
   
• A complainant believed that an article about a specific group of people, published by a metropolitan newspaper, incited racial intolerance. The editor's response did not satisfy the complainant. A public member mediation was arranged, during which the parties agreed that the complainant would write a letter to the editor and the paper would publish it. The letter was subsequently published.
   
• A regional daily published an article on street kids, claiming that they were out of control. The local mayor believed that the article was unbalanced. He requested that his letter responding to the article be published. After negotiations, conducted by the Council, the letter was published.
   
• A complainant's letter to the editor was published in a country newspaper. Unfortunately, a line of the letter was omitted in the transcription process. Once the Council had made the paper aware of the omission, it republished the complainant's letter in full.
   
• A metropolitan newspaper falsely accused a union executive of belonging to the steering committee of a specific action group. The paper admitted its error, and published a correction.

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Editors' Forums

One of the initiatives arising from Planning Day 2002 is that the Council's Chairman should undertake a series of visits to state capitals and some regional centres to meet, and consult, with editors of metropolitan, regional and suburban newspapers. While in those cities, the Chairman will liaise with other interested parties and promote the Press Council through media appearances, case studies seminars and other contacts.

The Council also decided that these visits by the Chairman to various centres would, in 2002-2003, take the place of interstate visits by the Council itself.

Professor Ken McKinnon commenced these forums with a meeting in Sydney of the Sydney-based editors from News Limited and John Fairfax Publishing and of Australian Consolidated Press. The issues covered included questions of current concern to editors; a discussion of the Council's (and each newspaper's) complaints handling procedures and of ways in which the Council's procedures could be streamlined to make them more friendly for editors and for readers; and an outline of the areas of current concern to the Council in free speech issues, particularly Freedom of Information laws, defamation law reform and the overuse by some sections of the judiciary of suppression orders.

Subsequently, Professor McKinnon (usually accompanied by Press Council members and the Executive Secretary) has had meetings in Canberra (including editors from Wagga Wagga and Wollongong), Launceston (with Hobart and Burnie also present), Melbourne (metropolitan and suburban editors from Melbourne, as well as those from Ballarat and Geelong) and Adelaide (with Mount Gambier present in addition to the local editors). He will travel to Perth at the end of August and meetings in south-east and far north Queensland will be organised for later this year.

As a result of these forums, some action is already underway: the Council has established a small working group to co-ordinate the collection of information from media organisations on complaints handling systems and to collect data on defamation actions, the success of FoI requests and the incidence of suppression orders. These data will be used to supplement APC research in these areas.

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On the Council

Two Public Members have left the Council for personal reasons in the last few months. Guiliano Ursini and Dee Biggs have offered their resignations which the Council has accepted with regret. Mr Usini was appointed to the Council as an alternate member in June 1995 and Ms Biggs in October 1997. Both became members of the panel of Public Members in January 2000 when the public membership was reformed and the position of alternate member eliminated. The Council thanked them both for their service.

The Australian Suburban Newspapers Association withdrew from the Council in May, for financial reasons. As a consequence Alec Mathieson, ASNA's representative on the Council, left the Council. Mr Mathieson has represented the ASNA since March 1994 and his valuable service to the Council was noted by members present at his last meeting. Subsequently, ASNA has voted to rejoin the Council and is negotiating with it on the terms and conditions of its re-entry. No new representative has as yet been appointed.

The Council noted with regret the passing of its long-time Journalist Member, Peter Costigan, in early August. A note on Peter, penned by Deborah Kirkman, is elsewhere.

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