ANNUAL REPORT 2014-2015 No. 39 The Australian Press Council Address: Level 6, 309 Kent Street Sydney 2000 Phone: (02) 9261 1930 or 1800 025 712 Fax: (02) 9267 6826 Email:
[email protected] Web: http://www.presscouncil.org.au ANNUAL REPORT 2014-2015 Annual Report No. 39 Year ending 30 June 2015 Level 6, 309 Kent Street SYDNEY NSW 2000 Australia Telephone: (02) 9261 1930 1 800 025 712 E-mail:
[email protected] Website: www.presscouncil.org.au Photo credits Page 2: Britta Campion/Newspix Pages 12,19,20,26,42: Leanne Ho ISSN 0156-1308 Chair’s Foreword It was a great honour and a privilege to be appointed the eighth Chair of the Australian Press Council on 28 November 2014, officially taking up the office on 1 March 2015. As foreshadowed in the Annual Report for 2013-14, the period covered in this Report was one of significant achievement but also considerable tumult. Two Council resolutions relevant to this are set out in Appendix 4. Happily, I can report that the Council has now returned to operating in a very harmonious and productive manner, with few if any unwanted distractions. As I have been strongly and publicly emphasising, the prevailing ethos must be that we are all part of a shared enterprise to maintain high standards of journalism, maintain a high level of public confidence in those standards, and do everything possible to ensure a free and effective press. As a new Chair of the Council and new to the industry, much of the first six months of 2015 was devoted to learning the ropes and meeting with our publisher members, editors, leading journalists, senior officers of the MEAA (the union to which most journalists belong) and the Walkley Foundation, media and communications academics and educators, and members of the NGOs, peak associations, and community groups with which the Council interacts.