Press Council rejects complaints over Daily Telegraph Jamie Gao front page
A complaint over The Daily Telegraph’s front page which showed murdered teenager Jamie Gao’s body wrapped in a tarpaulin floating in the ocean has been dismissed by the Australian Press Council (APC).
The complaint centred around the fact a foot could be seen protruding from the end of the tarpaulin in the feature image on the front page, published on May 27, which carried the headline “Deep blue murder: Ex cops at centre of death probe as body surfaces”.
A ruling issued by the APC today noted while the front page had the potential to cause “great offence” there were public interest arguments in highlighting the risks of drug dealing, that outweighed the potential for offence.
“The Council considers in this case that publishing the photograph did not breach its Standards, even though it was very prominent on the front page. This is mainly because there was a very strong justification in the public interest and also because the foot was not shown in graphic detail,” said the APC ruling.
There’s outrage when a billboard shows a dead horse yet a picture of a dead person is dismissed?
This is appalling. Being one of those people that knew Jamie, this image made me physically ill when it came out and definitely made the grieving process a lot more grueling. I can only imagine the damage it did to his mother. It’s not about how the foot isn’t graphic, it’s about the fact that we knew his body was in there, that we could see they were the shoes that he always wore.
It’s downright immoral and unethical to take the death of an individual and use it as a public service announcement, warning people against drugs. This is just the APC allowing The Daily Telegraph to picket at someone’s funeral like the Westboro Baptist Church.
You try explaining to a 5 year old the front page of your rag. Whats the point of TV censoring again?