The Australian Press Council (APC) has ruled that a Daily Telegraph headline claiming 'Labor backs Hamas' breached press standards for accuracy and failed to consider heightened community sensitivities during the Israel-Gaza war.
The headline, which read 'To keep peace at home, Labor backs Hamas', was published on 4 December and reported that Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong supported a UN vote for a two-state solution in the Middle East. The article quoted former ambassador Dave Sharma criticising the move as a play for domestic votes.
News Corp Australia defended the headline, arguing it reflected Sharma's opinion and that readers could distinguish between an opposition senator's criticism and the publisher's editorial stance. However, the APC found that without quotation marks, the headline was presented as a statement of fact, implying the Labor government was backing Hamas, which went beyond Sharma's comments.
The APC stated that publications must take great care to ensure accuracy, particularly in contexts of heightened community sensitivities and significant public interest. The breach was of General Principle 1, which requires reasonable steps to ensure factual material is accurate and not misleading.
The article remains online, and the adjudication was printed in Wednesday's newspaper. News Corp, the biggest funder of the APC, has previously allowed journalists to mock the council's findings.
