Complaints about papers

Press, 19 December 1985, Page 4

Complaints about papers

NZPA-Reuter London Britons are complaining in record numbers about the quality of their newspapers, a report from the country’s independent press watchdog said. Complaints to the Press Council ranging from bad taste and unfairness to bias and wholesale fabrication soared last year to their highest level since the body was set up 31 years ago. The barrage of protest coincides with a flare-up in press circulation wars which many commentators believe has diminished newspaper quality. &

The total of 1193 complaints in 1984 was 31 per cent up on the average for the previous two years and treble the number of a decade ago. The council, composed of 18 representatives of the public and 18 press nominees, upheld complaints against all but two of Britain’s nine national daily newspapers during the year. Its chairman, Sir Zelman Cowen, said the rise reflected growing public awareness of the council rather than a plunge in press standards. Five of the nine dailies

have changed owners in the last five years, most recently the “Daily Telegraph,” taken over by a Canadian businessman, Conrad Black.

Many are. preoccupied with a traumatic transition to modem printing technology and with the threat posed by the plans of a businessman, Eddie Shah, to launch a new low-cost, hightechnology daily next year. Most charges of inaccuracy and bias are aimed at the mass-selling tabloids but some critics say “The Times,” too, has bought a big<fcirculation rise at the

expense of its standards since Australian-born publisher, Rupert Murdoch, took over in 1981.

The Press Council, as in New Zealand, has no power to punish erring newspapers but editors accept a moral duty to publish its adjudications. It has complained in the past that censure is too often published in dense text under a dull headline on an obscure page. Its membership has been incomplete since 1980 when the main journalists’ union withdraw, calling it toothless. ' A