Fitzgerald and The Irish Times

Apr 11, 2012 | Decisions

The Press Ombudsman has decided that a statement published by The Irish Times on 3 December 2011 was in breach of Principle 5.3 (Privacy) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines because it failed to take sufficiently into account the feelings of Tom and Sally Fitzgerald, who were grieving over the death by suicide of their daughter Kate. The statement referred to an article that was published anonymously on 9 September 2011, and in which the author wrote about her personal history of depression. This article included some comments about the author’s experiences in her workplace, which was not identified. A subsequent article in the newspaper identified Kate FitzGerald as the author.

The statement published on 3 December apologised to the Communications Clinic – which it had emerged in the interim had been Kate Fitzgerald’s employer – for a number of assertions contained in the 9 September article. It stated that these assertions – which it did not specify – were “not factual”, and had been significantly damaging to the staff and management of Ms Fitzgerald’s employer.

Mr and Mrs Fitzgerald complained under Principle 5 that the statement had effectively called their daughter a liar, and had refused to state which of the assertions in her article it believed were “not factual”. They asked the newspaper to publish an appropriate clarification or apology, and for a concrete commitment to help promote awareness and understanding of mental health issues.

The newspaper said that the statement had been published after much deliberation, and following unequivocal legal advice. It drew attention to an article written by the newspaper’s editor and published on 5 December, which had detailed some aspects of what had occurred, and expressed the hope that its coverage of Ms FitzGerald’s premature death would have a beneficial effect similar to that created by its 2010 series on suicide. It also furnished the Office of the Press Ombudsman with a copy of an blog by its Online Editor about the issues involved in the publication of the statement complained of, which had been posted on the web on 20 December. It also noted that it had had two meetings with Kate Fitzgerald’s parents following publication of the statement.

The Online Editor’s blog accepted that the newspaper had made some mistakes over the previous few weeks, that it would have to learn from these, and that there were things that could or should have been done differently. It acknowledged the hurt and anger felt by the family following the publication of the statement complained of, and apologised for the newspaper’s part in contributing to it. The newspaper, in its response to the Office of the Press Ombudsman, said that this acknowledgement had been published on its behalf.

However, this was far from clear from the blog itself, as the final paragraphs of the blog, which contained the elements cited above, were prefaced by a statement from the Online Editor that he was expressing his personal view.

There is no evidence that the newspaper acted otherwise than in good faith in publishing the statement complained of because of legal issues that had arisen following the identification of the author of the original article, or that its concern for those who die by suicide and their families is not genuine. However, the newspaper failed to take the feelings of Kate FitzGerald’s grieving family sufficiently into account in publishing what it did and, following publication, failed to take sufficient remedial action to resolve their complaint. In these circumstances the complaint is upheld.