KEY POINTS:
A good friend, journalist David Cohen, tells me we share the privilege of tucking ourselves into bed at nights to read our Press Council decisions.
You may well ask what this is about. Six months ago, I wrote a story for North & South called "Asian angst: Is
it time to send some back?" It created quite a stir. Now everyone seems to have forgotten it, except for a few aggrieved readers, who complained to the Press Council.
The Press Council has been operating for 35 years, is independent of the Government (unlike the Broadcasting Standards Authority) and was set up by newspaper publishers and the then-Journalists' Union. It accepts complaints about editorial content, and it claims to promote freedom of speech and freedom of the press and to maintain the press "in accordance with the highest professional standards".
Five members of the public, two representatives from the Newspaper Publishers' Association and one from magazine publishers, and two journalists appointed by the journalists' union consider complaints. The council is chaired by retired judge Barry Paterson.
So what's this got to do with me, a determinedly anti-collective, independent hackette? Not a great deal, actually. I endorse the disdain with which my old boss and editor at Metro, Warwick Roger, treated the Press Council. In those days, Roger thumbed his nose at "that bunch of girls" and refused to join. But at least back then complaints were heard by working journalists, unlike the complaints against Cohen and me. His was more a spat between two journalists over a column in National Business Review, something the council shouldn't bother with. The decision has been rightfully ignored.
My decision is published in the latest North & South, received by subscribers yesterday, which goes on sale tomorrow. The decision was embargoed until tomorrow, not that you'd know it. Three weeks ago at the Qantas Media Awards, numerous media people approached me, delighted to know that the complaints against my story had been upheld.
Jim Tucker, who is not on the council but who had seen the decision in his capacity as head of the Journalists Training Organisation, informed Robyn Langwell and me it was a "damning" report; the council members had caned me for my inaccuracy. Tucker reminded Robyn what her husband, Warwick Roger, would have done in the circumstances - publish a similar story. Days later, I was told that Tucker had carried the news of this damning decision to one of the complainants.
I ask myself, if the head of a training organisation doesn't know what embargo means, what do they teach student journalists these days?
Then, when I finally received the decision, I wondered if Tucker was reading the same script. Damning decision? Hardly. More like the council felt behoved, in these socially responsible times when we must not offend anybody, to rule in favour of the complainants. They've worked hard to uphold "complaints by Tze Ming Mok and others, the Asia New Zealand Foundation and Grant Hannis" (head of Massey University Journalism School).
Thus spake the Privy Council of our craft. My crimes?
"The key issue," opined the council, "is the absence of correlation between the Asian population and the crime rate. Ms Coddington argues she has recorded the rise in the Asian population and it would have insulted the readers to link that with the crime figures. The Council does not accept this argument. The link is vital and should have been made explicit."
And second, "the language used is emotionally loaded".
Well, we can't have that, can we? Stirring people's passions with "emotionally loaded" language is downright dangerous. Wicked me. Naughty Langwell. But the council totally ignored the main complaint - that my statistics were wrong. From this omission, I can only conclude that I was correct all along, and the complainants - as I argued - wilfully used different statistics.
Even the complainants should be peeved by this pathetic decision. If I'd been judged by my peers - senior, investigative journalists - I could respect their conclusions, however "damning". Instead, I was found guilty by three lawyers, a retired diplomat, a teacher, a writer for Department of Trade and Enterprise, the editor of a rival publication and just one journalist I respect - John Gardner of the Herald. But even he should have excused himself, since two of the complainants were Herald reporters.
I can just imagine how lawyers would react if, when sent to the disciplinary tribunal of the Law Society, they were judged by journalists, teachers, a PR hack, et al.
And I doubt the public believes the Press Council is maintaining "highest professional standards" in the media in light of recent appallingly one-sided coverage of David Bain and the Mercury Energy fiasco. Right now the council is under review, but since the review is being led by Sir Ian Barker, QC, who shares Bankside Chambers with chairman Barry Paterson, I won't hold my breath for improvements.
