PRESS COUNCIL ADJUDICATION

THE Press Council has considered whether its Standards of Practice were breached by an article published by the Geelong Advertiser in print and online on 16 February 2017, headed “SKULL CLUE TWIST”.

The article included a large image on the front page. The left side of the image showed half of a missing man’s face, while the right side was half of a generic human skull, with the two parts digitally altered to form a face. A sub-headline at the top of the front page read: “REVEALED: Police suspect grim beach find could be missing man believed murdered”, and the words “IS IT PAUL KINGSBURY?” appeared over the bottom of the image. There was a smaller image of what appeared to be officials searching a beach in the bottom right corner of the front page. The article continued on page five with the headline “SKULL TWIST”, including an image of the missing man’s face without digital alteration.

The Press Council considered that it is unlikely an image of the missing man or an image of a skull alone would have breached the Press Council’s Standards. However, as the image of a skull is an image of human remains, the graphic blending of the two on the front page of the publication was likely to cause substantial offence and distress to the family of the missing man and to the community.

The Council considered further that the publication of the image was unlikely to assist in the investigation into the circumstances in which the man went missing, nor did his criminal record justify publication of the image. There was no sufficient public interest justifying the offence and distress caused by the image. Accordingly, the publication breached General Principle 6.

For the full adjudication, see: http://www.presscoun-cil.org.au/document-search/adj-1719.