Dr Ruairi Hanley and the Sunday Tribune

Complaint

Dr. Hanley complained on behalf of a doctor named in an article in the Sunday Tribune on 30 August 2009 entitled “A Pill for Every Ill” that the article breached Principle 3.1 and 3.2 of the Code of Practice (Fairness and Honesty). The article detailed visits by an undercover reporter to a number of named medical practitioners, in the course of which she obtained a number of medical prescriptions for anti-depressants after falsely representing herself as a person suffering from depression.

The newspaper argued that the report was part of a valid journalistic exercise carried out in the context of a long-standing debate in Ireland and internationally about the prescribing of anti-depressant drugs. It said that it had already published a number of letters both for and against its investigation, and it offered to publish a letter from Dr. Hanley on this topic. The offer was not accepted.

Decision

The Code of Practice states that publications “shall not obtain information…through misrepresentation or subterfuge, unless justified by the public interest.” In the circumstances outlined, the article was an appropriate journalistic contribution to an ongoing debate being carried on by a number of people and institutions. The complaint is therefore not upheld.

Newspaper editors have a continuing role in fostering public debate on matters of public interest. The editor’s offer to the complainant in this case underlined the importance of all publications making their columns available to a wide range of readers’ and other commentators’ opinions on matters of public controversy, both in relation to their own editorial views and in relation to their editorial decisions, within the normal constraints of the laws on defamation.

6 November 2009