Herald Sun cleared of standards breach in AFL drugs coverage despite ‘intruding on privacy’
The Herald Sun has been cleared of breaching press council standards over a series of articles on the Essendon AFL drug scandal, despite a finding they “intruded on the named players’ privacy”
News Corp’s Melbourne paper had been investigated by the Australian Press Council for a series of articles published on March 2 last year, which named 12 Essendon players who had spoken confidentially to the Australian Sports and Drugs Agency (ASADA) over concerns they had been injecting peptides during their time with the club.
Complaints to the newspaper watchdog centred on the front page exclusive entitled “The 12 AFL stars still in ASADA limbo: DONS DRUG HELL” and the spread on pages 8 and 9 titled “BOMBERS IN THE DARK: Thirteen months after the drugs in sport scandal broke, these AFL players are still looking for closure” which was accompanied by photos of the 14 players named in the piece.
In a response to the Council the Herald Sun said it had contacted the club and the AFL players’ association, but neither had wished to comment, added it had been supportive of the players’ situation, and claimed the ASADA investigation was a matter of public record, and took the other 26 players at the club out of the “cloud of suspicion”.In its conclusion the Council said the “disclosure clearly intruded on the named players’ privacy and may have caused them significant harm”, acknowledging they had been in the public interest “because of the importance of the allegations to the game of AFL, its administration and the safety of players, as well as the desirability of dispelling unjustified suspicion of other EFC players”.
However, the conclusion also raises fears the disclosures could have discouraged other people from cooperating with the investigation, thereby hindering it.
It finishes: “Having balanced these competing considerations, the Council is not satisfied there was a clear breach of its Standards of Practice in this instance. In doing so, it is influenced partly by the late stage of the protracted investigative process at which the disclosure was made.”
News Corp declined to comment on the ruling.
Alex Hayes
