Incorrect Target item: TV3 ordered to pay $38,000

MEDIA RELEASE

Attention: Chief reporter/news editor

3 June 2010

BSA orders TV3 to pay $38,000 for incorrect Target item

TV3 broadcaster TVWorks has been fined $10,000 and ordered to pay complainants’ legal costs of $28,068.75 after its Target programme incorrectly alleged food from Ponsonby’s Café Cezanne contained faecal coliforms.

In a decision released today the Broadcasting Standards Authority ordered TVWorks to:

• Pay the Crown costs of $5000 for the incorrect allegation and another $5000 for the apology a week later, which did not unequivocally clear Café Cézanne.

• Pay the café owners’ full legal costs of $28,068.75.

• Broadcast an apology and summary of the BSA’s decision on Target.

• Publicise the decision on radio stations and in a newspaper advertisement.

Before the programme went to air on 16 June 2009, Target wrote to Café Cezanne’s owners telling them a chicken sandwich from their café had tested positive for faecal coliforms. However, the letter contained incorrect information about the date of purchase. The owners questioned whether the sample was from their café but Target went ahead with the broadcast.

After the 16 June programme the owners raised further concerns about whether the sample was from their café. Target then met the owners and told them a mistake had been made in labelling the samples and said that it could not exclude the possibility that the faecal coliforms had come from Café Cezanne.

Target broadcast a statement on the 23 June programme that, “Due to a human error by a former Target staff member coding the results, we cannot confirm which café produced this high faecal coliform count.” A media release was also issued.

The café owners complained that the original item and the apology were inaccurate and unfair. They said the apology had not stated that the sample had been wrongly attributed to Café Cézanne.

In response, TVWorks said that it accepted the initial programme had been inaccurate and unfair but that “the prompt and appropriate nature of the correcting statement and apology” meant there had been no ongoing breach of broadcasting standards.

The BSA decision found that before the 23 June apology Target was in possession of two documents, which unequivocally exonerated Café Cézanne. These showed that the contaminated sample was collected and delivered to the laboratory on a different day from the sample that came from Café Cézanne.

Therefore, it was clear that the contaminated sample definitely did not come from Café Cezanne.

The BSA said in its decision that “as a consumer affairs programme that holds others to account Target has the power to seriously damage the reputations of the businesses and individuals that it puts under the microscope.

“A damaging report of a small business was broadcast not only as a result of a significant breakdown in Target’s processes but also because the producers of the programme apparently refused to properly consider information supplied by the complainants in the days immediately prior to the broadcast. Even a cursory examination of the information available to the production company would have highlighted that something was seriously wrong,” the decision said.

“Significant harm” had been caused “to the complainants’ reputation and to their business”.

When considering what action to take, the BSA noted that these were serious breaches of broadcasting standards. The BSA has the power to take a broadcaster off air or stop it advertising for a period. It chose in this case, however, to focus on practical measures, which would provide redress for the complainants, and which included ordering the broadcaster to publish statements about the breaches in different media.

Taking into account the circumstances the BSA felt the complainant’s full legal costs should be reimbursed. It also ordered the maximum costs to the Crown be paid, $5,000 for each programme.

Although it has ordered apologies only rarely and the broadcaster had already apologised for the errors, there had been no acknowledgement that broadcasting standards had been breached and the BSA considered that the broadcaster needed to apologise again.

Ends

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