Australian Financial Review lashes Press Council for ‘poor practice’ after tugboat worker ruling
The Australian Financial Review has accused the Australian Press Council of setting a “low bar for 
what a media watchdog should bother itself with” after being found to have breached guidelines over a headline from August last year which centred on the pay of tugboat workers.
Today the Australian Press Council (APC) said Fairfax’s national masthead was “inaccurate, misleading and unfair” by using the headline “$390k tugboat workers to strike for 40pc rise” on the article which detailed how Port Hedland based Teekay Shipping was seeking a Federal Court injunction to stop 52 staff from striking.
However, in its response, published in today’s paper, the AFR says what “the Press Council calls its ‘usual process’ is also poor practice for a journalist, let alone a media watchdog,” as it has not tested the evidence from complainant the Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers (AIMPE) with Teekay Shipping, its original source for the story.
The strong reaction from the paper comes after new chairman David Weisbrot told Mumbrella he would look at the processes of the APC, and was looking to “reset” its tense relationship with the other daily national paper News Corp owned The Australian.
Both Fairfax and News don’t like the Press Council? Sounds like they are doing their job well.
The AFR editorial does not dispute the fact hat its headline was wrong. It us clear that it could have used much lower salary and ambit claim, avoided the misleading errors and had the same effect.
It is clear that the AFR has caught the sane disease the Oz has had for some time: an obsessive compulsive disorder that in the AFR case is mostly to do with unions. Their readers, who can think for themselves, are leaving in droves.
leaving the AFR for what? the Daily Tele business section?