Mr Michael Smith, Editor, Village Magazine and The Irish Times

The Press Ombudsman has decided that the actions taken, and offered to be taken, by The Irish Times in response to a complaint by Mr Michael Smith, Editor, Village Magazine, about a court report published on 8 October 2013, was sufficient remedial action on its part to resolve a complaint made under Principle 1 (Truth and Accuracy) and Principle 7 (Court Reporting) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines.  Other parts of the complaint were not upheld.

Mr Smith complained that the report, based on court proceedings for alleged defamation against him and Ormond Quay Publishing Limited, was not fair or accurate. He said it did not report on the essence of the case, and he highlighted seven statements in particular in the article which he said were inaccurate.  He sought the publication of a correction and apology, with the same prominence as the original article.

The newspaper initially corrected two of the statements complained about. One correction made it clear that a reference to the publication of false and defamatory material should have been described as an allegation.  The second was a correction of a subheading which had stated wrongly that the plaintiff was seeking damages, when what he was actually seeking was a declaration of defamation.

Following the intervention of the Office of the Press Ombudsman, the newspaper offered to publish a correction of three of the five other statements complained about  – that the article under complaint was in the same edition of the Village Magazine as a “corruption special” rather than as part of a “corruption special”, that the Court was told the company was “operating on a shoestring” as distinct from “on a shoestring”, and that when the complainant told the court that the publishing company was “impecunious” the Judge did not ask if this was so.  

Mr Smith turned down the newspaper’s offer of the publication of these further corrections, maintaining  that all seven alleged mistakes should  be corrected in the same place, with due prominence, as in the case of the original article.

The Press Ombudsman accepted that the fact that fewer corrections than were requested were published, and that those that were published did not appear together, was undoubtedly unsatisfying for the complainant. However, he also concluded that it would be unfair to oblige the newspaper to republish the text of the corrections that had already been published, and that that the publication of the second substantial set of corrections offered would in any case have drawn additional and renewed public attention to the complainant’s criticism of the article. In all of the circumstances, therefore, the Press Ombudsman found that the action taken and the offer made by the newspaper was a sufficient response on its part to resolve the complaint.

The Press Ombudsman found that the two statements complained about by Mr Smith which the newspaper did not offer to correct because it did not believe they breached the Code were not inaccurate, misleading or distorted to the degree that would  warrant a decision that they were significant and therefore in breach of Principles 1 or 7 of the Code.

There was no evidence that the article breached Principle 2 (Distinguishing Fact and Comment), Principle 3 (Fairness and Honesty) or Principle 4 (Respect for  Rights).

13 June 2014

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