McCamley and the Irish Independent

The Press Ombudsman has decided to uphold a complaint by Mr. John McCamley, a bus driver and trade unionist, about an article published in the Irish Independent on 29 April 2009 concerning an unofficial dispute in Dublin Bus, and has decided not to uphold two further complaints about the same article.

Mr. McCamley claimed that the article entitled “Passengers – stop moaning” in the Irish Independent of 29 April 2009 was in breach of Principle 2.1 (Distinguishing Fact and Comment) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Periodicals as it combined what he described as a diatribe with a purported fact i.e. that he had organized an unofficial stoppage. He presented in support of his complaint a statement from Dublin Bus that no disciplinary proceedings were to be taken against him following a preliminary internal investigation into the dispute.

The newspaper replied that it continued to stand over the article as published. It said it was prepared to publish the results of the internal investigation by Dublin Bus, to state that no disciplinary charges would be brought against Mr McCamley by Dublin Bus, and to publish a statement from him that he was neither, an organizer of the unofficial strike concerned, nor responsible for any unofficial pickets. The offer was turned down by Mr McCamley, who sought a full retraction and unreserved apology.

This article was, in effect, a combination of comment on and conjecture about the complainant’s purported role in the Dublin Bus dispute. While there is no intrinsic obligation on the author of a comment article to provide evidence accompanying the statements on which the comments are based, truth and accuracy remain important benchmarks for all journalism. In these circumstances, while the Press Ombudsman is unable to make a decision about the truth or accuracy of the statements involved, his view is that the article’s inclusion of these statements without qualification or attribution amounts to a breach of Principle 2 of the Code of Practice.

A number of other complaints were not upheld.

Mr McCamley complained that the article breached Principle 1 (Truth and Accuracy) in that the reference to him as the “leader” of the unofficial dispute was inaccurate, that the newspaper had not contacted him for his views before publication, and that the newspaper had ignored two corrective press statements sent to it by his political party the day before publication of the article under complaint. As the Press Ombudsman’s investigative role is confined to assessing evidence voluntarily made available by both parties, there is insufficient evidence available to him in this case to enable him to make a decision on the accuracy or otherwise of the statements under complaint. The Press Ombudsman’s opinion therefore, in the light of all the circumstances, is that the newspaper’s offer was a sufficient response on its part to the complaint under Principle 1. The publication of the full report of the Dublin Bus inquiry, however, would be conditional on the prior agreement both of the complainant and of Dublin Bus.

Mr McCamley also complained that the article was in breach of Principle 4 (Respect for Rights). As the complainant did not provide any evidence to support his complaint under Principle 4, and as the Press Ombudsman could find no evidence that Principle 4 had been breached, this part of the complaint is not upheld.

16 February 2010

Mr McCamley appealed the decision of the Press Ombudsman to the Press Council of Ireland.