CRIKEY DOBS RUPERT IN OVER FAKE NUDE RIGHTWING POLITICIAN PICS
March 18th 2009 10:02
Australian independent web news site, Crikey, has taken the unprecedented step of lodging an Australian Press Council complaint against Murdoch’s News Ltd over saucy bedroom-lingerie photos that were claimed to be controversial right-wing politician Pauline Hanson when she was young.
Crikey said, “We are doing this because we think the ethical issues raised cannot simply be allowed to fade. Although it now seems most likely that the photos were not of Hanson, the issues faced by editors and journalists when deciding to publish this sort of material still need adjudication.
“At the time News Ltd tabloids decided to publish, they apparently believed the photos were of Hanson, taken decades before in the privacy of a bedroom. They therefore decided to grossly invade her privacy with no apparent public interest reason to do so. We think News Ltd editors should be held to account.
“But how? Hanson says she will sue, but even if she goes ahead that suit is likely to be about defamation, not privacy. For all sorts of reasons, political, personal and financial, the suit may not proceed or may be settled out of court without the principles being tested.
“Yet the principles are important. Privacy is important, and the degree to which public figures retain their right to privacy comes up again and again in newsrooms if not (yet) in law.”
Crikey, which has been highly critical of the Australian Press Council in the past, said “Let’s see, though, whether it can do its job in this case.”
Crikey said, “We are doing this because we think the ethical issues raised cannot simply be allowed to fade. Although it now seems most likely that the photos were not of Hanson, the issues faced by editors and journalists when deciding to publish this sort of material still need adjudication.
“But how? Hanson says she will sue, but even if she goes ahead that suit is likely to be about defamation, not privacy. For all sorts of reasons, political, personal and financial, the suit may not proceed or may be settled out of court without the principles being tested.
“Yet the principles are important. Privacy is important, and the degree to which public figures retain their right to privacy comes up again and again in newsrooms if not (yet) in law.”
Crikey, which has been highly critical of the Australian Press Council in the past, said “Let’s see, though, whether it can do its job in this case.”
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