News in brief - May 2005

APC News by email
On the Council
Re-affiliation of MEAA Guideline on witness payments
World Press Freedom Day statement
2005 Annual Address
Visit to Ballarat
Submission on criminal proceedings
Submission on ASIO legislation
Submission on national security legislation
Submission on Privileges
Tobacco advertising review
Dating letters to the editor
University research
Mediations

News by email

From the August 2005 edition of the News, Press Council publications will sent by email to those who ask for delivery in that form. If you want the News sent direct to you (in pdf format) please send an email to info@presscouncil.org.au with subject line News by email and you will be placed on the direct email list.

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On the Council

At its May meeting, the Council appointed Leo White as the new Public Member from Queensland. Leo P.L. White, lawyer turned mediator, negotiation trainer and humanitarian worker, deals with issues impacting on aboriginal people, refugees and the resolution of conflict. His private company, Tulara Pty. Ltd., has sponsored communications and provided mediation and negotiation training in the field for protagonists in armed conflict and their political representatives in East Timor, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, Bougainville and Solomon Islands, with the support of local church and community leaders. He has been appointed for an initial three-year term.

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MEAA

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), the union that represents among others journalists, has re-affiliated with the Press Council as a Constituent Body, with its membership to commence on 1 July 2005.

When the Council was formed, in July 1976, it was by agreement between the then Australian Journalists Association (AJA) and the publishers. The AJA was a Constituent Body until late 1986 when it withdrew from the Council over a dispute as to the way in which the Council should react to a takeover of the Herald and Weekly Times by News Limited. In the 1990s the AJA combined with a number of other unions to form the MEAA and the AJA section of the Alliance continues to deal with complaints about individual journalists who are members of the union through a series of Judiciary Committees in the various states.

The Alliance and the Council have been negotiating for some time about the terms of its re-affiliation and agreement was reached earlier this year. The Alliance will provide one member of the Council in the first instance, and this member will be in addition to the 21 current members of the Council. After a couple of years the Council and the Alliance will discuss whether the current system of appointing independent journalist members will be retained or whether additional members of the Council will be appointed by the Alliance.

The re-affiliation of the Alliance ensures that the Press Council represents the entire print media industry and will strengthen its position when making submissions to governments and other bodies as an independent body representing the print media and the public.

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Witness payments in trials

The Australian Press Council issues guideline statements from time to time. These guidelines are, in essence, amplifications on particular issues arising from the Council's Statement of Principles. The guidelines apply the Principles to the practice of reporting and are intended to guide the press on how it should report certain matters. A list of the extant guidelines (and links to them) can be found on the Council's website at http://www.presscouncil.org.au/pcsite/activities/gprguide.html.

In April, the Council issued a guideline on the payment of money to witness or potential witnesses. It recognised that, on occasion, publications will pay sources to ensure that matters of public interest and concern that might not otherwise be published are made available to readers and noted that there is legislation in most jurisdictions that restricts the ability of criminals or their associates to benefit financially from their crimes. It said that payment by media organisations to witnesses or potential witnesses might be seen as colouring their testimony and, therefore, urged extreme caution.

The question did not arise as a concern until last year, when the possibility of such a payment led to the cessation of a trial in NSW. As a result the Council was asked to look at the issue.

The Council recognised the rarity of such instances, but recommended the following to publications:

1. No payment or offer of payment to a witness, or any person who may reasonably be expected to be called as a witness, should be made in any case once proceedings have commenced.
   
   This should last until the proceedings have ended. This would normally be when the defendant has been freed unconditionally by police without charge or the proceedings are otherwise discontinued; when a guilty plea has been made; or, in the event of a not-guilty plea, the court has announced its verdict.
    
2. Where proceedings have not yet commenced but are foreseeable, publications should not make or offer payment to any person who may be expected to be called as a witness, unless there is a significant public interest in the publication of the material. They should also take all reasonable steps to ensure no financial dealings influence the evidence those witnesses give. In no circumstances should such payment be conditional on the outcome of a trial.
    
3. Any payment or offer of payment made to a person later cited to give evidence in proceedings should be disclosed to the prosecution and defence. The source should be advised of this possibility before the payment, or offer of payment, is made.

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World Press Freedom Day 2005

On 3 May, the Council issued a statement to mark World Press Freedom Day.

The Australian press continues to face significant challenges in its efforts to keep the Australian public informed of important matters. As the rest of the world marks World Press Freedom Day, May 3, by drawing attention to the increasing murder, detention, torture and arrest of journalists, the Press Council believes the ever-increasing, if less overtly violent, attacks on press freedom in Australia should not go unnoticed.

The Council calls on Australian governments to recognise its Charter of a Free Press as a basis for maintaining a spirited and free press in Australia.

The Charter is based on Australia's endorsement of Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to the free flow of information to enable news and opinion of public interest to be freely available to the citizens of Australia.

Yet, in the courts and the parliaments, assaults on the ability of journalists to report, and publishers to publish, information in the public interest remain constant.

Australian journalists can face criminal charges and jail terms for obtaining information. They are offered no protection as journalists. The public as a consequence can be denied significant information about the performance of their government in times when Australia's place in the world has reached significant prominence.

As the Australian Government's policies emphasise the benefits of the spread of democratic ideals in the Asia-Pacific region, and wider, the Press Council notes that there remains a number of growing threats to what most Australians would regard as essential: a free and vigorous Australian press.

While some of those 'threats' arise from a understandable desire to protect Australians from the possibility of terrorist attacks, the Press Council seeks to ensure that any actions taken by governments which restrict freedoms be limited to those absolutely necessary, and that such restrictions be for a limited duration to forestall any on-going denial of the traditional freedom of speech, and of the press.

Other contemporary threats to the freedom of the press to report on matters of public interest and concern arise from excessive secrecy and from 'spin-doctoring', which has spread from politics into all aspects of Australian life.

The Press Council believes that information on matters of public interest should be freely available unless there are very good reasons otherwise; the onus must be on those who want to suppress information to demonstrate a need so to do. If information were more freely available, there would be a lessened ability for those with questionable motives to 'spin' it for their own benefit.

In its role as the self-regulatory body of the print media, the Press Council seeks to ensure that the Australian press is responsible in the way it reports and is fair, as far as is possible, to all parties involved. It recognizes that a free press is constantly under threat, sometimes from violence or, as is more often the case in Australia, from the more stealthy approach of governments, corporations and courts. It must guard against all such threats, but it must also guard against any form of exclusivity within itself. A free press must to open to all points of view, anything less is a step in the direction of lost freedom.

The freedom of the press is the freedom of the people to be informed. Only a free, and a responsible, press can serve the needs of a democracy in keeping citizens informed on matters of public concern.

The Charter for a free press can be found on the Council's website at: http://www.pressouncil.org.au/pcsite/fop/charter.html

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Annual Address 2005

Media commentator Richard Ackland delivered the third Press Council Address at a media lunch on Thursday 31 March 2005. The Address looked at the vexed relationship between judges and journalists and why they seem to have difficulties understanding each other. Justice Ron Sackville, the Chairman of the Judicial Conference of Australia (JCA), responded to the Address and led the question/discussion period to follow.

A report on the Address is contained in this issue of the News. The speech is elsewhere on the website. A report on the response will be published next issue.

The 2005 Annual Address was delivered at a lunch, hosted by the Council, at the Swissotel, Market Street, Sydney.

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Visit to Ballarat

In early May, the Council visited Ballarat and held its regular meetings there. While in the city, the Council conducted a public meeting on the question of Privacy and Press, with Age editor Andrew Jaspan and Victorian Privacy Commissioner Paul Chadwick delivering the keynote addresses. A report of the seminar will be published in the August APC News and a transcript of the seminar will be published by the Council. While in Ballarat, some members of the Council met with Courier editor Peter Dwyer, visited the newsroom and took the opportunity to sit in on the paper's editorial conference. While it normally meets in Sydney, the Council visits a capital city or regional centre elsewhere in Australia at least once a year.

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Criminal proceedings

The Australian Press Council made a submission to the NSW Attorney-General on the Criminal Procedure Further Amendment (Evidence) Bill 2005 and on recent amendments to the Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act 1987 (NSW). The former would, among other things, automatically close courts when victims of sexual assaults were giving evidence; the latter would preclude the publication of images of minors who were the victim of crime even after their death.

• The proposed amendment to section 291 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1986 should be reworded so that courts would retain a discretion as to whether or not to proceed in camera.
   
• S 281F should make a distinction between images that are obscene or that portray deceased persons and those which are not indecent but which do invade a person's privacy. The act should clearly define what constitutes an interference with a person's privacy, and the media should not be excluded from access to images unless it is clearly established that those images would constitute an invasion of privacy.
   
• S 11 of the Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act 1987 should grant the courts some discretion as to whether a deceased person who was a minor at the time of a sexual assault can be identified by the media.

The complete submission has been posted to the Council's website.

As a result of the submission, and even stronger suggestions from publishers, the Attorney has agreed to amend the Criminal Procedure Further Amendment (Evidence) Bill 2005 to enable the media fairly to report the evidence of victims of sexual assault even if they were not able to be present in the court.

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ASIO Review

In April, the Council made a submission to a joint Parliamentary Committee reviewing the ASIO Act. The submission's Executive Summary read:

Division three of part III of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 poses a threat to freedom of speech and has a significant potential to obstruct the ability of the media to ensure that government agencies are held to public account for their actions. The Australian Press Council calls on the government to allow division three of part III to lapse in accordance with s 34Y of the Act. If the government is unwilling to abolish division three, the Australian Press Council calls on the government to make the following amendments be made to the legislation:

1. Section 34G should be amended so as to remove from the defence the onus proof and to place upon the prosecution the onus of proving that a defendant does or did have information in his/her possession.
    
2. The strict liability provisions should be removed from sections 34G and s 34VAA.
    
3. The definition of "operational information" in s 34VAA(5) should be narrowed so that the only information which is protected from disclosure is that which would pose a significant threat to Australia's security or defence.
    
4. Section 34VAA (5) should be amended so that a penalty can only be imposed where disclosure would result in a threat to national security.
    
5. Section 34VAA(2) should be deleted or amended so that the prohibition on disclosure ceases when the operation to which the warrant relates has been concluded.
    
6. Section 34VAA(12) should be expanded to include defences for disclosing information where the public interest in disclosure outweighs any threat to national security.

The complete submission has been posted to the Council's website.

The Council's Chairman will appear before the Joint Committee on 6 June to present oral evidence to the review.

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National Security

Also in April the Council made a submission to the Australian Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee's Inquiry into the National Security Information Legislation Bill 2005. The submission's Executive Summary read:

The National Security Information (Criminal Proceedings) Act 2004 presents a threat to freedom of the press in Australia. The National Security Information Legislation Bill 2005 would extend that threat. The Australian Press Council is of the view that the Senate should amend this bill so as to reduce the potential of the Act to limit freedom of speech.

• The definition of national security is too broad and should be narrowed.
   
• It should be an offence to issue certificates under the Act for an improper purpose.
   
• The media should be given standing to make representations to the court as to whether a hearing should proceed in camera.
   
• A sunset clause should be inserted into the Act.
   
• There should be no extension of the power to make regulations without the scrutiny of parliament.

The complete submission has been posted to the Council's website.

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Privileges

In May there was a Submission from the Council to the Senate Committee of Privileges on its review of unauthorised disclosures from parliamentary committees.

In March and May 2003, the Chairman of the Council, Professor Ken McKinnon, in letters to the then Chair of the Senate Committee of Privileges, Senator Robert Ray, made the points that the Senate has little ability to stop unauthorised leaks from committees, and that the leakers are, in almost all cases, members of the relevant committee. (These letters and Senator Ray's responses were published in Annual Report No. 27 and formed the basis for a report from the Senate Committee of Privileges.)

The Council noted in its submission that, two years later, the Committee of Privileges appears to recognise the futility of classing all unauthorised disclosures as contempts and now is attempting to distinguish those disclosures that may interfere with the work of committees from those that do not.

The Council argued that the committee needed to make one important distinction. In determining what, if any, disclosure interferes with the working of committees or of the Senate, it needs to distinguish the leak itself from the publication of the leak.

It also said that there is no indication that the Senate will take the appropriate action to find the culprit. In lieu the Senate and its committees have taken the easy course of shooting the messenger, the press, rather than finding ways of disciplining Senators or finding ways of discovering and closing the source of the leaks.

"Has the Committee of Privileges considered adopting powers to check the hard drives and telephone records (including mobiles) of committee members and staff when there has been a leak? Has it considered the same kind of courses for Senators that it urges on Heads of Commonwealth departments and authorities and on editors and journalists?" the Council asked.

The complete submission has been posted to the Council's website.

The Council's Executive Secretary appeared before the Committee on 3 May to present oral evidence to the inquiry.

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Tobacco Ads

In October 2003 the Council made a submission to the federal Department of Health and Ageing on its Review of the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act 1992. The Council's principal concern was with any attempt to widen the definition of 'advertising' in the Act to encompass material that is neither advertising nor promotional. It was concerned that the Department's issues paper failed to recognise that there is a distinction between advertising and editorial content and the possibility that it sought to intrude into the reporting of, and commentary on, matters of public interest and concern, while purportedly dealing with advertising.

In May 2005, the department informed the Council that the review "concluded that the Act is currently working well to protect the Australian public from advertising messages and the gains made by making amendments to the Act would be insignificant. As a result, the Government does not intend changing the Act at this time."

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Dating letters

At its May meeting the Council considered a letter from Geoff Woods of Deloraine in Tasmania. He hoped that the Council would develop a guideline on a standard practice for newspapers. He was concerned that, with some letters being sent by email published almost immediately and others being sent by mail and published some days after writing, newspapers did not, as a matter of course, inform readers of the date on which letters were written. He wrote to the editor of his local paper:

"A letter of mine recently took 16 days to appear, by which time much more had been said on the topic, and opinions, even mine, had changed somewhat. I would like to request that your paper please put on each letter to the editor the date of receipt of the date of writing.

"Because it is quite important for all correspondence to the press, I am sending a copy of this to the Press Council asking that they make it a standard for all Australian newspapers."

The Council decided against issuing a guideline on the matter, believing that such a question was one best left to the editor of any newspaper, but agreed to publish this extract from Mr Woods' letter so that the issue could be brought to the attention of editors, and of newsrooms, as a matter for discussion.

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Research

The Council met last year with researchers in a number of areas of interest to the Council. Emerging from that was a decision to initiate a new Research Grant available to researchers in Australian universities to provide funds that would enable them to develop more detailed proposals for an Australian Research Council grant. The Council decided in March that the inaugural grant would be awarded to Professor Mark Pearson of Bond University. He has received a grant of $5,000 for research on the press and privacy, and the Council will publish in the newsletter and on the website the outcomes of the pilot study he has undertaken.

Another outcome was an agreement that the Council would publicise through the newsletter relevant, current research being carried out in universities. On behalf of the Journalism Education Association, Professor Mark Pearson, head of journalism at Bond University, has provided the Council with a summary of research in journalism departments.

Journalism educators throughout Australia are conducting practical research with benefits to industry.

For example, the editor-in-chief of APN News and Media, Terry Quinn, announced at the Commonwealth Press Union editors' forum in Sydney in February that his organisation had seconded Griffith University journalism academic Jacqui Ewart for three years to undertake readership research for the group.

Industry, government and private partnerships with academics in recent years have funded investigations into such topics as public journalism, sources of news, newsroom trauma and the coverage of age, mental illness and suicide.

What follows is a selection of recent research, drawn mainly from reports in two of the nation's key scholarly journals in the area, Australian Journalism Review published by the Journalism Education Association, and Australian Studies in Journalism, published by the University of Queensland.

• Postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland, Shuang Liu, analysed 857 articles from four Australian newspapers to examine the social categorization of Chinese ethnic groups. The researcher found an over-representation of ordinary Chinese as "illegal immigrants", suggesting the press might look more closely at its stereotypical representation of ethnic groups if it is aiming to win readership from such audiences.
   
• James Cook University researcher John Cokley undertook a project in conjunction with a north Queensland college servicing indigenous students, using a "scaffolding literacy" program that used journalism to improve literacy skills. The students' work was broadcast to indigenous communities, improving social links in the process.
   
• An extensive study of newspaper obituary columns conducted by Nigel Starck of the University of South Australia found women outnumbered by a ratio of four to one. Newspapers seeking to appear more accessible to female readers might look to correct such discrepancies.
   
• An undergraduate student and professor at Bond University worked to develop a web-based, step-by-step defamation checklist for use by working journalists and students. It is due for launch in 2005.
   
• A University of Queensland study of the readability levels of articles in three newspapers over a 30-year period found a national daily and a metropolitan daily pitched stories at a reading level above that of the average citizen, while a regional daily was closer to the general public's reading standard. The difference stood to alienate some readers from newspapers in an era of declining circulations.
   
• University of South Australia researcher Akhteruz Zaman conducted an ethnographic study of the ABC newsroom in Adelaide and found a tendency among journalists to use each other as sources, but disagreement over whether this was a good or bad practice.
   
• A joint Griffith University and James Cook University study of the sources used in an independent community newspaper found normally under-represented groups were being given a voice, defying traditional journalistic sourcing routines and practices.
   
• Newspaper historians Rod Kirkpatrick and Helen Ester, in separate studies, trawled through documents and microfiche to demonstrate how much there is to learn from the pioneering editors of Australian newspapers.
   
• A Bond University background paper on press freedom and open justice informed the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission's inquiry into media access to police communications.

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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 occasion, a Public Member of the Council (or a member of the secretariat) 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 regional daily incorrectly reported that the complainant (a magistrate) had presided over a court case that created public unrest. The paper immediately published a correction and apology. The paper also offered to publish a letter to the editor from the complainant. The complainant was happy with the quick rectification of his complaint.
   
• A metropolitan newspaper published an article that incorrectly reported that the federal employment agency of a European country can force women to work as prostitutes. The female complainant was very offended by the report, particularly as she had emigrated from the country referred to in the report. The complainant had supplied the Press Council with a response to the article from the country's Consul. The newspaper said that it would publish the response upon receipt of written permission to do so from the Consul. The permission was given. The response was published. The complainant was happy.
   
• A regional daily had published an advertising supplement that was not identified as such. The complainant feared that readers would be misled by the supplement. The paper advised that a style change had inadvertently led to the words Advertising Feature being omitted. They have now been re-inserted under the heading of the supplement.

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