APC head withdraws from News Corp rulings

Australian Press Council chair Julian Disney will sit out from adjudicating editorial complaints involving News Corp Australia following accusations of apparent bias.

The watchdog's executive director John Pender said late on Friday that two of the publisher's newspapers had written to him "insisting" that Professor Disney disqualify himself from the council's adjudication of two complaints, on the grounds that there could be an appearance of bias.

Mr Pender said he did not consider the requests justified, but that Prof Disney had decided to withdraw because "he believes the Council cannot afford to have its complaints work subjected to the further severe disruption which would flow from resisting the newspapers' demands and related misrepresentations".

The announcement comes a week after News Corp broadsheet The Australian took aim at the Council's "mission creep" in an editorial.

"The council is on a crash course with reality," the editorial read.

"Instead of aiding free speech, it acts like a human rights body, inventing limp causes to justify its extra funding. Drunk on power, it is ill-equipped to master tricky terrain and is a hindrance to publishers and consumers alike."

In another editorial earlier this month, The Australian said the Press Council had become "erratic in its rulings, unmoored from its foundations, ponderous and serpentine in its procedures" under Prof Disney's leadership.

Prof Disney was only due to chair one more adjudication panel meeting before leaving the Council in January, Mr Pender said.