30th March 1998
The Australian Press Council
Suite 303
Grand United Building
149 Castelreigh Str
SYDNEY 2000
Dear Sir,
I enclose herewith my complaint against News Limited national affairs reporter Peter Charlton and News Limited’s Courier Mail.
The complaint involves a clear breach of journalistic ethics.
Yours faithfully,
Scott Balson
On Saturday 21st March 1998 I read an article by Peter Charlton headed ‘Conspiracy Theories’ (Attachment ‘A’). The article was carried in the ‘Monitor’ section.
The article was offensive to me for several reasons. These include:
I contacted The Courier Mail on Sunday 22nd March and spoke to Anne Fussell who asked me to send my right of reply. It was very clearly referred to as a ‘right of reply’ and it was on this basis that I faxed the document to Anne Fussell (see Attachment ‘B’).
On Tuesday Anne Fussell confirmed to me that she had received my right of reply and passed it on to Des Houghton who is in charge of the ‘Prespectives’ section. I contacted Des Houghton on Tuesday and on Wednesday 25th March at the request of his secretary (who phoned me) sent Houghton an email with an amended article (Attachment ‘C’) as the earlier article (Attachment ‘B’) was too long.
My right of reply has, to date, not been published, however, on March 28th Charlton had another article in The Courier Mail on Saturday 28th March - again in the Monitor section. The article headed ‘Gurus of Gloom’ used extracts from my initial letter to Anne Fussell which had been clearly marked as a ‘right of reply’. (I can make this deduction because my shortened email (Appendix ‘B’) to Des Houghton does not carry the reference to McDonalds.) Furthermore, in the ‘Gurus of Gloom’ article Charlton states, ‘In a long response to last weeks report on the MAI, Balson wrote:’
The extracts used by Charlton were taken out of context. They did not deal with the issues that I raised which addressed my concerns referred to in the opening of this complaint.
For example,
I am furious at the manner in which my work was used by Peter Charlton and The Courier Mail in an article which presented me as a ‘Guru of Gloom’.
On Sunday morning I contacted Anne Fussell at The Courier Mail expressing my concerns and advising her that I believed that there was a clear breach of journalistic ethics involving my right of reply.
Ms Fussell told me that she had noted with some surprise that extracts from my right of reply had been used but said that the second Charlton article had been supervised by The Courier Mail’s Editor-in-Chief, Chris Mitchell and that she could not do anything about it.
I contacted Des Houghton at 10am on Monday 30th March. Des told me when I asked if my right of reply would be published, quote, ‘No, the articles been done.’ (referring to Charlton’s article on Saturday 28th March.
He then referred me to David Crossum - Features Editor and the paper’s Editor in Chief Chris Mitchell. Crossum was in a meeting so I was put through to Mitchell’s office.
Mitchell was out so at 10.13am I spoke to Paul Veselovski (Editor in Chief’s 2ic) setting out the situation - he told me that Mitchell would be back in the office at 10.30 am and he would call me back. He has not done this.
I contacted Chris Perkins of the Australian Journalist Association on Monday 30th March. He told me:
‘We only have jurisdiction over AJA members who are bound by the code of ethics. None of those you mentioned are members so are not bound by the code of ethics. Your only recourse is the Australian Press Council.’
I then contacted Deborah Kirkman of the Australian Press Council who suggested I put my complaint in writing.