Aggrieved readers made over 370 complaints about newspapers and magazines last year during the Press Ombudsman’s first year of work, his annual report has revealed.
However, ombudsman Prof John Horgan made decisions in just 35 cases, of which -third were decided in favour of the complainant. A further 12 cases were resolved by conciliation.
The massive difference between the number of complaints and the number of adjudications arises from the fact that many complaints were not followed up or related to articles in publications that are not members of the Press Council. Other complaints were rejected because the articles concerned were written before the ombudsman opened for business in January 2008.
Reviewing the performance of the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman in their annual report published today, council chairman Prof Tom Mitchell said an innovative and effective regulatory system had been created that offered significant benefits to the press and public alike.
The two bodies, were established by the print media industry with support from the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), say they operate independently of both the Government and the press industry. Prof Mitchell says they offer a complaints mechanism which is “far less forbidding than the often daunting, slow and expensive route of the courts”.
Of the 372 complaints received by the ombudsman last year, 81 were not processed and 45 were in respect of publications outside the Press Council. Of the remaining 246 complaints considered by his office, 113 were not followed up beyond a preliminary hearing as the complainants did not pursue the case within the three months allowed.
Some 41 cases are still being processed and 92 are fully processed. Of the latter, 26 were ruled out on first reading, 11 were withdrawn by the complainant and six were postponed because of legal proceedings.
Of the 35 decisions made by the ombudsman, 13 complaints were upheld, 18 were rejected while in four cases, the publication was judged to have offered sufficient remedial action.
The ombudsman referred two further cases, considered to be complex or significant, directly to the council. In one, concerning an interview with the mother of the late Katy French in the Irish Daily Star Sunday, the council decided the article breached fairness and honesty principles but not privacy principles.
In the second case, it ruled that an article entitled "Africa is giving nothing to anyone – apart from Aids" by Kevin Myers in the Irish Independentwas "seriously insulting" to Africans as a whole and used gratuitously offensive language.