The United Kingdom’s Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) has rejected complaints made by Fermanagh and Omagh District Council over coverage by the Enniskillen-based newspaper, the Impartial Reporter, of meals provided to local councillors.
The council was angered following a series of articles in April and May this year that detailed the council’s decision to offer meals to councillors attending meetings, under headlines such as “Feasting on Ratepayers: ‘The Very Hungry Councillors’”, or “Gravy Train”.
In a detailed complaint, the council claimed that a Freedom of Information reply to the newspaper on the issue had been wrongly reported and alleged that it, and councillors had suffered from inaccuracies and harassment.
However, the complaint did not pass the first hurdle under the London-based press regulator’s rules, which found after reading it carefully that it did “not raise a possible breach of the Editors’ Code”.
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In a detailed list of complaints, the council complained that the coverage contained inaccuracies, misrepresented Freedom of Information replies and amounted to harassment of individuals.
The press regulator found it was “not inaccurate, or misleading” for the Impartial Reporter to report that the Freedom of Information reply from the council had featured redacted material, since the names of councillors who had proposed a motion had been excised.
In addition to complaining about accuracy, the council argued that councillors had suffered a campaign of harassment because the publication of four articles on the same issue within a three-week period constituted persistent pursuit.
Rejecting this, Ipso found that the articles had focused on the official duties of councillors and found that there had been no evidence of intimidation or persistent pursuit in breach of one of the Ipso regulations.
Journalists are entitled to approach the subjects of stories for comment, and while the approach was “robust”, it happened in the council’s headquarters and “the behaviour did not seem to be intimidating”, the regulator said.
A complaint made personally by Sinn Féin councillor Sheamus Greene to Ipso was rejected, too. He had argued that the newspaper had published his personal data in breach of the law, but this was rejected by the regulator.
In its ruling, Ipso said newspapers are entitled to express opinions and to be critical of public bodies, provided they do not publish inaccurate or misleading information. This, the Impartial Reporter had not done.
Instead, it had properly scrutinised the policy itself and the decision by councillors to vote in secret on the vote on providing meals to councillors. Criticism of public decisions, including meals funded by public money, fall well within the remit of the press, said Ipso.
