Architects Alliance and The Sunday Business Post

The Press Ombudsman has decided that The Sunday Business Post made an offer of sufficient remedial action to resolve a complaint made on behalf of the Architects’ Alliance about an article published on 30 January 2011.

Mr Brian Montaut of the Architects’ Alliance complained that an article headlined ‘Audit discovers hundreds of illegal architects’, which reported on the findings of a survey undertaken by the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), breached Principles 1 (Truth and Accuracy), 2 (Distinguishing Fact and Comment) and 3 (Fairness and Honesty) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines. Mr Montaut complained in particular that there was a significant and neglected side to the matter reported in the article, which he said made the article seriously unbalanced and misleading. While the complainant sought a correction and retraction of the article, the editor of the newspaper offered to publish a letter from him giving the Architects’ Alliance’s side of the argument.

The article reported on the findings of the survey carried out by the RIAI, and many of the statements complained about in it were attributed to either the survey’s findings, or to other different sources, and were not presented as fact, and did not therefore fall to be considered under either Principle 1 or 2 of the Code of Practice. While there may have been another side to the argument in relation to the statutory protection of the title ‘architect’ under the Building Control Act 2007, as stated by the complainant, there was no onus on the newspaper in this particular instance to include it. In the circumstances, the newspaper’s offer to the complainant to submit a letter for publication giving his side of the argument was an offer of sufficient remedial action to resolve the complaint.

Mr Montaut also complained that the article failed to reveal the fact that the RIAI is a private limited company. This omission did not breach any provision of the Code of Practice.

20 June 2011
 

The Complainant appealed the decision of the Press Ombudsman to the Press Council of Ireland.