Press Council reprimands Aargauer Zeitung
In its coverage of criminal proceedings against a lawyer, the AZ violated the duty to hear both sides. By repeatedly publishing the lawyer’s photo, the newspaper also pilloried him, the Press Council announced on Tuesday.
From January to April 2012, the Aargauer Zeitung had reported in a series of articles on the criminal proceedings against a Lenzburg lawyer for property crimes. The investigation by the Aargau public prosecutor's office had been ongoing since 2010. The Press Council - the ethics body of the Swiss media - has now partially upheld the man's complaint. With the repeated publication of the picture on its online portal, the Aargauer Zeitung had gone too far. This "disproportionately pilloried" the person.
Furthermore, the daily newspaper had not always given the accused lawyer the opportunity to comment on serious allegations in some of the published articles. The Press Council rejected the part of the complaint according to which the name of the man should not have been mentioned.(SDA)
