Blueprint for reforming a wayward
press council
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THE AUSTRALI AN
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AUGUST 28, 201 4 12: 00AM
OVER the past few weeks, a series of articles in this newspaper has
revealed problems with the Australian Press Council that raise the
question of whether it has a future. We believe it does, but only if it is
prepared to reform itself. Industry self-regulation has broad support in
the community and among publishers, but the body is out of step with
the times and has itself become judge, jury, investigator, enforcer and
lawmaker. The press council has fallen short of the mark on both of its
main areas of responsibility: the promotion of freedom of speech and the
way it handles complaints. These are duties, not options; they are
enshrined in its constitution. Yet during the tenure of outgoing chairman
Julian Disney, the press council has been conducting itself as if the
provisions dealing with freedom of speech have been removed. Its
complaint-handling process has been perverted and made to serve the
interests of social activists seeking a forum. The reforms suggested by
this newspaper are modest. They amount to nothing more than
returning the press council to its core and traditional responsibilities:
being practical in the publishing demands of its adjudications, toning
down the adversarial nature of hearings, being true to its constitution
and restoring an orthodox approach to complaints.
The Australian has no problem with a system of independent complainthandling. We just want a better one; a press council whose actions are worthy
of respect, not ridicule. Given the fact News Corp Australia (publisher of The
Australian) provides the press council with about $1 million in revenue each
year, this might not seem unreasonable. One of the best ways of returning to
orthodoxy is for the council to follow the example of the press complaints
bodies in Britain and Ireland, both of which impose restrictions on
complaints from “third parties” — those with no involvement in the article
under challenge. The press council has gone in the opposite direction. Twothirds of complaints defended by News Corp are from third parties and,
increasingly, most complaints are not about inaccuracy but about subjective
matters such as taste and fairness. This has had a direct and adverse impact
on the press council’s standing. It is impossible to take it seriously when it
has taken seven months to decide whether it was wrong for us to publish an
unqualified opinion in favour of eating kangaroos by our food writer John
Lethlean. Should he have included the views of the Australian Society for
Kangaroos on the downside of kangaroo shooting? An organisation in touch
with reality would never have opened its processes to such a gripe. It should
have finalised this matter in seven minutes, not seven months. The fact it got
this far shows how the organisation is extending and reinterpreting its
jurisdiction.
Doubts about the rigour of its complaint-handling process were confirmed
last weekend when executive director John Pender explained why the press
council had briefly unleashed its complaint process against The
Australian over publication of the notorious “severed head” photograph. The
picture, described as “probably iconic” by US Secretary of State John Kerry,
shows the seven-year-old son of Australian terrorist Khaled Sharrouf holding
the head of a slain Syrian soldier. That process was simply aimed at
extracting information from us so it that it could be passed on to third parties.
This is a ridiculous overreach and justifies urgent reform. “We received
multiple complaints,” Mr Pender said. “We considered it important to be able
to provide complainants with the newspaper’s reasons in its own words. It
did not mean that I or anyone else at the council necessarily believed that the
complaint should be considered further after receiving the preliminary
response from the newspaper.”
In federal administrative law, statutory organisations are not permitted to
make use of their powers for “improper purposes”. The principle that
organisations should apply their powers only for the purposes for which they
were conferred is hard to fault. What we have at the moment is a press
complaints body that, in many areas, is out of its depth. It has purported to
extend its jurisdiction into subjective areas where it has no expertise and are
simply none of its business: tone, taste and editorial decision-making. Correct
us when we are wrong Professor Disney, but don’t fall into the trap of
believing that your judgments on tone, taste and other subjective matters are
somehow “correct”. They are mere opinions worth no more than those of
anyone else. Because Professor Disney’s term as chairman expires in
January, some might mistakenly believe that this problem will solve itself
when his replacement takes office. That view, unfortunately, takes
insufficient account of the systemic changes that have been wrought in the
Disney years.
One of the most troubling and illegitimate extensions of the body’s
jurisdiction slipped through in February. It ruled against The Daily
Telegraph because it believed a story on page 17 should have been given
more prominence. This is a huge leap for the council. It never sought
approval from publishers to second-guess decisions of editors on story
placement. It simply reinterpreted its existing requirement for reports to be
“accurate, fair and balanced”. The next newspaper that runs a contentious
front-page editorial will be at risk of an inquiry into whether it was “unfair”
to give the subject page-one prominence. All it takes is an activist who
disagrees with the editorial and a compliant press council.
Mission creep also explains the press council’s new restrictions on reporting
funerals. These slipped through this month in an adverse ruling against the
decision of The Sydney Morning Herald to cover the funeral of a murder
victim without permission. It was based on the illegitimate extension of the
council’s privacy principle, a move that has no basis in legal principle.
Former chairmen David Flint and Ken McKinnon would not have used the
privacy principle this way. Because the council’s criticism of The Sydney
Morning Herald was based on this reinterpretation of its powers, it was
entirely without justification. Unless this ruling, too, is repudiated it will
affect all newspapers and will encourage media intrusions at funerals by
requiring reporters to contact family members or funeral directors. Like
courts that use their rulings to create new laws, the press council is in the
midst of an “activist” frolic. Just like judges who see themselves as social
heroes, Professor Disney is creating precedents without understanding the
consequences and practical impact.
Taking a stand for freedom of speech is a non-negotiable part of the reform
agenda that must be embraced if the organisation is to regain its standing. Yet
after the wrong course charted by Professor Disney, returning to a focus on
freedom of speech will require a major shift. The worst missteps on this
aspect took place when Labor’s Julia Gillard became fixated on restricting
press freedom and asked retired judge Ray Finkelstein to run an inquiry into
media regulation. The idea that the press watchdog was a toothless tiger was
wrong; journalists have always fought hard to avoid adverse council findings.
Still, the press council developed a plan, never implemented, which seems
hard to reconcile with its constitutional requirement to challenge
developments that would materially affect the free flow of information and
the public’s right to know.
The problems at the press council are real. Its unorthodox approach to its role
is verifiable. Yet those who believe former ABC Media Watch host Jonathan
Holmes would see the press council as an innocent victim. The real problem
with his analysis, published this week in The Age, is not its lack of substance,
but its hypocrisy. While newspapers generally correct their errors, the ABC
— and Media Watch in particular — fight tooth and nail to avoid
broadcasting the fact that they have made a mistake. This newspaper’s editor
in chief Chris Mitchell has taken his concerns about it to the Australian
Communications and Media Authority.
Newspapers have never been more willing and able to correct their errors or
publish council adjudications. Some rulings are now longer than the original
article or most of the stories actually published in newspapers. Yet the press
council is disconnected from its members — not because it is a stern body,
but because it has simply lost credibility and direction. Through ponderous
musings on taste and an ineffectual push for press freedom, it has become not
so much a university common room as a body that is weakening the very
industry it is meant to fortify. Not all is lost. As long as the press council
addresses its patent flaws and rebuilds consensus with publishers — about its
role and the standards it seeks to protect and promote — the body will
prosper. Everyone benefits when the press aims high for better practice and
readers are protected from those seeking to censor the truth.