The West Australian failed to provide fair and balanced coverage of former Perth Lord Mayoral candidate Sandy Anghie on multiple occasions, the company’s self-funded regulator has found.
The West Australian newspaper failed to provide fair and balanced coverage of former City of Perth Lord Mayoral candidate Sandy Anghie on multiple occasions, the company’s self-funded regulator has found.
Ms Anghie made four complaints to the Independent Media Council - the regulatory body funded solely by Seven West Media, the owner of The West Australian – relating to four stories published by the newspaper between September 23, 2023, and January 20, 2024.
The first complaint surrounded claims made in two stories in 2023: a September 23 story headlined Here comes Team Sandy at a cost of $16k, and an October 5 story headlined Keeping her own council? Anghie’s donation conflict.
At the time of publishing, Ms Anghie was running for Lord Mayor of the City of Perth against the incumbent Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas – an employee of Channel 7, which is also owned by Seven West Media, and a regular columnist for The West Australian newspaper (WAN).
Ms Anghie claimed it was inaccurate to say she “bankrolled” four candidates in the City of Perth election, a claim made by WAN in relation to Ms Anghie’s in-kind donation to each of the four candidates to cover the cost of printing envelopes for flyers of the candidates.
Ms Anghie also took issue with WAN’s claims the donations had been for the “printing, delivery and postage of flyers”, when it had in fact only been for the printing of envelopes, and for the use of the words “coordinated campaign” to describe Ms Anghie’s interactions with other candidates.
The fourth complaint surrounded a lack of balance in reporting on Ms Anghie’s opponent in the mayoral race, Mr Zempilas.
The newspaper highlighted Ms Anghie had enlisted Mark Reed, a former campaign manager for Mark McGowan, when linking Ms Anghie’s “coordinated campaign” with past issues of dysfunction and factionalism in the Perth city council.
It made no such mention of Mr Zempilas’ campaign manager, a former Liberal Party employee, and that two of his team members were Liberals, including the President of the Perth branch of the Liberal Party.
The newspaper also did not link Mr Zempilas’ to a “coordinated campaign” or link it to past dysfunction on the council caused by factionalism, despite his campaign similarly organising preferred candidates, how to vote cards, joint mailouts, and tee shirts and caps with candidates’ names.
In its rulings, the IMC said WAN’s use of the words “helped to bankroll” and “coordinated campaign” were accurate.
However, it also found it was inaccurate to say she “bankrolled” the other candidates – being that it insinuated Ms Anghie covered a significant portion of the candidates’ expenses, and in saying Ms Angie funded printing, delivery and postage of flyers.
“There was a lack of fairness and balance when reporting the coordinated campaign run by Ms Angie, but not that by Mr Zempilas,” the IMC decision said as it upheld Ms Anghie’s complaints against the first two stories.
The third story Ms Anghie lodged complaints against was the January 19, 2024 front page of The West Australian headlined ‘TROUBLE IN PARADISE’.
The complaint centred around the fact all photographs and nearly all content of the story, which criticised Ms Anghie and her husband for being on holiday while Ms Anghie’s husband’s company experienced turmoil, were taken from Ms Anghie’s social media accounts.
Ms Anghie also complained the article disparaged her by inviting readers to think less of her because she went with her husband on the holiday, so she should have been given a right of reply.
The complaint was not upheld by the IMC, because all content was taken from profiles which had public privacy settings – meaning in the council’s view, it had been published in the public domain.
The council also found WAN was not obliged to provide a right of reply.
“Nevertheless, we think it good practice to offer a right of reply whenever there is a possibility of a news report raising an adverse inference, and that it would have been wise of WAN to have done so in the present instance,” the council said in its ruling.
The fourth and final story Ms Angie lodged complaints about was the January 19 ‘Herd on the Terrace’ column headlined ‘ANGHIE MAKING A HASHTAG OF IT’.
The column criticised Ms Anghie’s response to the ‘TROUBLE IN PARADISE’ article, which she posted to social media.
The IMC found the column’s overall tone evinced a hostility towards Ms Anghie and held opinions which did not follow fairly and reasonably from the facts.
It found the headline to be unfair and inaccurate, and the description of Ms Anghie’s social media posts being ‘angry’ to be inaccurate and unfair.
Ms Anghie’s complaints about the column were upheld.
Seven West Media left the independent Australian Press Council in 2012, meaning the IMC – which is funded by SWM - is the only standards body which covers the company.
The IMC does not have the powers of a court or tribunal and is limited in relief it can direct when there are breaches of its code.
It did require WAN to publish its determination in full online, and to publish a summary in the newspaper.
It also recommended WAN apologise to Ms Anghie for “damage done to her prospects of being elected Lord Mayor of Perth due to its failure to provide a fair and balanced coverage of her campaign.”
