Press Council: Basler Zeitung reprimanded for violation of privacy

The Swiss Press Council criticizes a report of the Basler Zeitung (BaZ). In an article of October 11, 2008, about an officially approved hemp field in Rümlingen BL, the author had spread rumors and suspicions concerning drugs or drug trafficking. She gave the full name of the tenant and mentioned a conditional prison sentence of 2004 that had been handed down against him as an assistant in the cultivation of hemp plants containing high levels of THC. "Press-ethically interesting and problematic" is according to the press council thereby the basic tone of the short report. The author had found nothing to indicate that hemp cultivation violated any laws. However, the author contrasts these facts with "a series of suspicions and anonymously expressed rumors.

Tenant moved into the twilight
The article puts the tenant "in the twilight of criminality" and approaches crime reportage in its tendency - only "that it unfortunately lacks the necessary crime to do so." The mention of the previous conviction serves in the context of the article "only as an apparent support of the rumors, for which the author can provide otherwise no evidence". This, however, was contrary to journalistic professional ethics and violated the privacy of the tenant. Likewise, there had been no public interest. Also, by providing information to the author, the tenant had not implicitly consented to the naming of the author.
BaZ, on the other hand, had asserted tacit consent and a public interest to the Press Council: anyone who earned income from hemp cultivation and endangered public safety could not invoke the right not to be named.