The Press Council has considered whether its Standards of Practice were breached by the publication of a Cartoon by Mark Knight in the Herald Sun on 10 September 2018. The cartoon depicted Ms Serena Williams on a tennis court, jumping in the air with her arms out to her sides and her hands in fists above a broken tennis racquet. A baby’s pacifier was depicted on the ground in front of the broken tennis racquet. In the background, an umpire was shown saying “Can you just let her win?” to a woman standing on the other side of the net. The cartoon referred to an incident during a tennis match between Ms Williams and Ms Naomi Osaka.
The Council noted that cartoons are commonly expressions of opinion examining serious issues and which use exaggeration and absurdity to make their point. For this reason significant latitude will usually be given in considering whether a publication has taken reasonable steps to avoid substantial offence, distress or prejudice in breach of General Principle 6. However a publication can, in publishing a particular cartoon, still fail to take reasonable steps to avoid contributing to substantial offence, distress or prejudice without sufficient justification in the public interest and breach the General Principle.
The Council accepted that the cartoon was illustrated in response to the events that occurred at the US Open final on 9 September 2018 that attracted global attention. The Council considered that the cartoon uses exaggeration and absurdity to make its point but accepts the publisher’s claim that it does not depict Ms Williams as an ape, rather showing her as ‘spitting the dummy’, a non-racist caricature familiar to most Australian readers. Nonetheless, the Council acknowledged that some readers found the cartoon offensive. However, the Council also accepted that there was a sufficient public interest in commenting on behaviour and sportsmanship during a significant dispute between a tennis player with a globally high profile and an umpire at the US Open final. As such, the Council did not consider that the publication failed to take reasonable steps to avoid causing substantial offence, distress or prejudice, without sufficient justification in the public interest. Accordingly the Council concluded that its Standards of Practice were not breached.