The Australian Press Council has come to the conclusion that the Sydney Morning Herald‘s monumentally cooked article about Rebel Wilson was “likely to cause substantial offence and distress” and “intruded” on her privacy. Who’d have thunk it?
The Council released an adjudication on Saturday, which basically allowed it to diplomatically tear the SMH to shreds by outlining which Standards of Practice it had breached by publishing the piece.
In case you need a refresher on the yarn, it all started when SMH columnist Andrew Hornery gave Wilson two days to offer a comment on her relationship with Ramona Agruma before he wrote about it.
Wilson hard-launched her relationship with Agruma before Hornery published the story, which caused him to chuck a hissy fit and write an article in June headlined “Rebel starts spreading the news”.
In the story, he said the actress had “opted to gazump the story” and had made a “big mistake”. The bloke had clearly just watched Pretty Woman and was inspired by Julia Roberts sticking it to a snooty shop assistant.
The internet, understandably, slammed SMH and Hornery.
I’ve just read this @smh piece 3 times to make sure that I wasn’t misreading. The publication messaged Rebel Wilson saying they would out her in 2 days – and is now complaining that she chose to announce her relationship with a woman herself. Quite astonishing. pic.twitter.com/qiPZkYFmka
— Megha Mohan (@meghamohan) June 11, 2022
A few months on, the Council has ruled the SMH disobeyed its principles relating to privacy and the avoidance of harm. It noted the publication had “conceded” it breached the principles and to “address the concerns raised with the article”, retracted it and published apologies from Hornery and Editor Bevan Shields (who initially doubled-down on the piece).
The Council also accepted that public figures like Wilson “can have a reduced expectation of privacy” and “there can also be a public interest sufficient to justify intruding on their reasonable expectations of privacy”. But there wasn’t enough public interest to explain the SMH‘s actions.
“However, in this instance, the Council considers that the tenor of the publication’s communications with Ms Wilson concerning a deeply personal matter and the associated commentary on a matter which had no apparent connection to her public activities, intruded on her reasonable expectations of privacy,” it wrote.
“The Council considers that, taken collectively, the article’s reference to ‘outing’ same-sex celebrity couples, its reference to giving Ms Wilson two days to respond to information concerning her relationship, and its forthright criticism of her for not responding, was likely to cause substantial offence and distress.”
The TL;DR is the Council didn’t reckon there was enough public interest to justify intruding on Wilson’s personal life. Water is wet, the sky is blue, et cetera.
Nonetheless, we love to see it. Wilson agreed and took to Instagram to share how pleased she was with the Council’s ruling.
“Just seeing the news that the Australian Press Council has condemned the Sydney Morning Herald and their journalists for their recent grubby behaviour in trying to out my same-sex relationship,” she said.
“And while I didn’t personally ask for any action to be taken I am glad that this has been officially recorded and recognized.
“Their actions did cause Ramona and I a lot of distress and while we’ve remained classy, there are still pains from having to rush this news publicly which we are dealing with.
“We move on, focusing on all the absolutely amazing new things in our life though! Sending love to everyone 💗”
Wilson recently spoke to The Australian about how difficult the situation was, saying she and Agruma hadn’t told some people about their relationship before the couple went public.
“I just thought it was kind of grubby behaviour,” she said.
“Basically with the situation where a journalist is threatening to out you, you’ve got to hurry, and some people we didn’t get a chance to tell before it came out publicly. And that’s not ideal.”
No one should feel threatened to come out or like they have to “hurry” to announce it. My heart breaks for Wilson, as well as anyone else who’s been in that horrible situation.
Don’t out people and let folks come out on their own terms challenge!
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