Press Council complaint decision

Press, 16 May 1984, Page 26

Press Council complaint decision

The New Zealand Press Council has not upheld a complaint lodged against an editorial article in “The Press” on the death of President Yuri Andropov, of the Soviet Union.

Mr M. C. Creel, of Christchurch, complained to the Press Council about the article in “The Press” on February 13. Mr Creel considered the editorial was a gratuitous attack in the worst possible taste, exceeding the bounds of what might be deemed permissible comment on the death of the leader of a great nation, however much one might disagree with that man’s politics. In its second paragraph, the editorial said: “To Mr Andropov falls the honour of being remembered as the man who developed the use of psychiatric hospitals to treat political dissidents. To him, also, the discovery that forced labour could be used

to produce sophisticated machinery such as motorcars, as well as continuing the work of breaking-in the Soviet Union’s vast Siberian “ ‘wilderness’. ”

Mr Creel claimed that the editoral breached good taste in its manner and style, was false on a matter of fact, and misrepresented by insinuation and innuendo.

When Mr Creel wrote to the editor of “The Press,” the latter replied that the newspaper had over some years given space to Mr Creel’s appraisals of the Soviet Union, but those views, however conscientiously held, differed from those of the newspaper and from information gathered by innumerable people, Soviet and non-Soviet citizens. The editor said that, in his opinion, the article was well founded and was not a matter of bad taste. He declined to disavow the article, as Mr Creel sug-

gested. The Press Council, in its adjudication, said that the editorial was written in vigorous terms and was obviously critical of Mr Andropov’s administration. But the council had, in the past, upheld the right of an editor to express opinion fiercely on national attitudes and on national leaders. That was part of the history of European and New Zealand polemics. The council held on that occasion that the forcefulness of a writer’s argument should not be subject to restriction because intemperance in language might cause offence.

“Similar considerations must apply to the editorial which was the subject of Mr Creel’s complaint, which was therefore not upheld,” said the adjudication. Mr E. B. Lock, editor of “The Press,” who is a member of the council, took no part in its consideration of this complaint.