For proof the Press Council is a toothless tiger, see the bottom of page 104 of the Tele
Today, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph had an excellent opportunity to show off just how well voluntary press regulation works.
The newspaper published an adjudication from the Australian Press Council.
The APC found that the Tele had given the National Broadband Network an entirely unjustified kicking in three different stories. The complaint was upheld in all three cases.
There are only two interpretations to be drawn from the finding, which reports: “The Council expressed concern that within a short period of time three articles on the same theme contained inaccurate or misleading assertions. It considers that this sequence of errors should not have occurred and that they should have been corrected promptly and adequately when brought to the newspaper’s attention.”
Those two interpretations would be that either a) the Tele is staffed entirely by shithouse journos, or b) it’s really got it in for the NBN and is letting that colour its coverage. Personally, I don’t think the Tele is staffed entirely by shithouse journos.
Embarrassing as the finding is, I think the Tele’s played this one foolishly. With the print media inquiry yet to report, and questions being asked about whether self regulation works, guess where the paper reported this?
On the bottom half of page 104 of the Boxing Day edition of the Tele. In the World News section. And at the time of posting it’s not been published by the paper online at all.
If anyone wanted evidence that the APC really is a toothless tiger, this is a textbook example. For those who argue papers that get it wrong don’t have to give equal prominence to correcting the facts, this is great evidence.
Some of the criticism belongs with the APC – the Tele’s reporting of this seems to be within the rules.
But the Tele’s been stupid too. Burying this adjudication gives critics of self regulation all the ammunition they need.
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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hey Tim,
you’re right that the Tele buried this one, but I don’t think this is evidence that we need more regulation of the press.
I argued in my submission to the Media Inquiry (here in PDF format: http://bit.ly/s2qV1M) that independent media is playing a strong role in editorially correcting the mistakes of mainstream media. The publication of your article and mine about this issue, in my opinion, go quite a ways towards indicating that this kind of ‘industry self-regulation’ is functioning at some level.
Delimiter’s article on the Tele’s NBN inaccuracies can be found here: http://bit.ly/sXguCg
Do Delimiter and Mumbrella have the Tele’s audience? No. However, Despite the fact that it was published on Christmas Eve (a Saturday), our article alone has pulled in more than 4,500 page impressions over the Christmas period and 36 reader comments — indication that people are indeed interested to see what the Tele got wrong.
We see this behaviour quite a lot in the much more mature new media market in the US as well.
Cheers,
Renai LeMay
Editor + Publisher, Delimiter
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“either a) the Tele is staffed entirely by shithouse journos, or b) it’s really got it in for the NBN and is letting that colour its coverage.”
The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
“Personally, I don’t think the Tele is staffed entirely by shithouse journos.”
Not *entirely*, eh?
For the record, the bylines on the three yarns are Gemma Jones (twice) and Geoff Chambers.
Jones is federal politics reporter and an eight-year veteran of the paper. Presumably the Tele think she’s one of their best.
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Renai – I agree that independent media play a big role in correcting the mistakes of mainstream media. But that doesn’t mean they should hide their mistakes.
It’s in their interest to take accountability and be more transparent, otherwise they’ll lose their readers…. to the likes of you!! Good for you, shite for them.
External industry regulation will make life harder for media businesses, but it would certainly be good for readers.
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Renai, as an Editor, you should have realised that the first word in your letter to the inquiry has a grammatical error (capital T). Oh. Dear.
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I think most reasonably intelligent people can see that the Daily Telegraph has an agenda
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