Paper’s flight of fancy slammed

HE Australian Press Council has censured Toowoomba’s The Chronicle for running a relentless one-sided campaign.

THE Australian Press Council has censured Toowoomba’s The Chronicle for running a relentless one-sided campaign in favour of a controversial airport which included publishing without question the developer’s claim that the noise under the flight path would be “quieter than a dishwasher”.

The council upheld a complaint from the reader that the newspaper had failed in its duty to check basic facts about the Brisbane West Airport development and had only covered the developer’s side of the story.

Last week’s adjudication highlights growing concerns about the news drought afflicting regional areas where declining professional standards and under-­resourcing in non-metropolitan newsrooms is leaving many communities poorly served.

The private airport development, built by Wagners, a local family company, was controversially fast-tracked by Toowoomba Regional Council, denying neighbouring residents the right to lodge objections and refusing them the right to compensation.

The Chronicle’s coverage of the Wagner family borders on adulatory. When the Wagners’ private aircraft became the first to land at the airport last November, the ­entire front page was given over to a picture of the extended family descending the steps, waving to a non-existent crowd.

Yet the press council found that in eight articles over 10 months only one voice critical of the airport had been published: broadcaster Alan Jones, whose 2GB show is rebroadcast on the local station 4GR.

The newspaper described Jones’s criticism as “a 20-minute on-air tirade”.

The following day it gave Wagners’ managing director John Wagner extensive space to reply in an article headlined “Wagner to Alan Jones: You’re a loudmouthed ignoramus”.

Mr Wagner accused Jones of “scaremongering and spreading lies” urging him to “get off his fat backside and get up here”.

Mr Wagner claimed in the same article that noise in the town of Westbrook, which lies under the planned flight path, would be less than 55 decibels. “That’s less than a lawnmower would make,” he said.

In a separate article in October, Wagners chairman Denis Wagner was quoted as saying the noise would be “less than that of a dishwasher”.

The council said it unable to judge on the basis of the material it had been provided whether or not the noise claims were accurate and that the newspaper was in error for taking the Wagners’ ­assertion on trust. “It is clear the publication did not take reasonable steps to ensure their accuracy,” the council said. “The publication did not ask to see the study by Wagners on noise level projections, and it did not seek the opinion of any specialists on the subject. The comments by Denis Wagner were so prominent and so overwhelmingly positive, some ­attempt should have been made to include alternative views, such as those evident in letters and reader comments.”

The Chronicle’s coverage of the development in general and the Wagners in general is entirely uncritical. Few stories on the airport quote anyone other than John and Denis Wagner and many quote verbatim at length from Wagners’ corporate press releases.

In one story published last ­August, headlined “Wagner family’s airport dream ready to take flight”, direct quotes attributed to Denis Wagner accounted for more than 400 of the 550 words.

Prime TV chairman John Hartigan said the special relationship of trust a successful regional newspaper needed to establish with its readers was easily broken.

“Trust is non-negotiable in an era when audiences expect to have access to all sorts of points of view,” he said. “One can only hope that in an era of austerity-driven journalism that the baby doesn’t get thrown out with the bath water. It certainly appears to be the case in this press council ­adjudication.”