Press watchdog finds Financial Review guilty of inaccuracy in gender gap reporting
The Australian Financial Review has been found guilty by the press watchdog of breaching the industry’s standards on accuracy and of not properly correcting an error in its reporting on the gender pay gap.
How the AFR is still reporting the issue online
The Australian Press Council investigated a complaint about an article by journalist Fiona Smith in the AFR last September. The article – “When babies are a good career move” – states as fact that “the difference between what men and women are paid for the same job, same hours” is 18.2%.
However, the number – provided in a report from the Federal Government’s Workplace Gender and Equality Agency – actually referred to the difference between men and women’s average full time equivalent earnings – not for doing the same jobs.
After the APC investigated the complaint, the AFR, published by Fairfax Media, argued that the article’s use of the phrase was “colloquial”.
However, the APC ruled:
“The Council considers that the article clearly stated as fact that the “gender pay gap” was 18.2% when measured by reference to remuneration for the “same job, same hours”. However, the agency report on which it relied for this statistic defined and measured the gap as being, in effect, for the same hours but not necessarily in the same jobs.
“As this method was made clear in the agency report itself, and the difference is of considerable significance, the Council has concluded there was a failure to take reasonable steps to ensure factual material is accurate and not misleading. Accordingly, there was a breach of the Council’s Standards in this respect.”
In addition, the AFR failed to correct the article, arguing that it would have considered a letter to the editor. The online version of the feature still remains uncorrected at the time of posting. The APC ruled:
“Where an inaccuracy is significant and not reasonably disputable, as in this case, it is usually necessary for the publication to make the correction in its own name rather than to treat it as if just a dispute between two opinions that can be remedied adequately by publishing a letter to the editor. Accordingly, the Council has concluded that there was a breach of the Standards of Practice in this respect.”
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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So the Press Council thinks the AFR should be accurate? And the AFR thinks it’s OK to publish stuff that is pure self-interested spin or even deliberately wrong. (Take the recent efforts of its pet galah in the naming of an ex-CEO of Ten)?
The AFR is totally screwed as a product of relevance and is increasingly an oily anchor line for a coterie of ego-driven dirigibles.
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Meanwhile the rest of the media world find the press council guilty of irrelevance.
Slow to take action. Action is weak and inconsequential.
Continue.
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