The New Zealand Press Council is a body established to uphold the standards for published media in New Zealand. This book deals with the decisions of the New Zealand Press Council on balance, fairness and accuracy. These three principles are of high importance in respect to upholding good journalistic practice and shall be observed rigorously. Therefore, this book closely examines the New Zealand Press Council's adjudications for the period 1996-2003. The author describes the Council's history, structure and complaints procedure in the first part of the book. In the second part, the author analyses approximately 300 adjudications on how they meet the principles balance, fairness and accuracy. The overall analysis shows that some changes in the Press Council's decisions may be desirable to make sure that the high standards of journalism will be upheld in the future.

Dr. Christian Probst is a German qualified lawyer with international experience. Christian received his law degree from the University of Munich and a degree in business administration for jurists from the University of Bayreuth. He completed a LL.M. programme at Victoria University (NZ) and wrote a dissertation at the University of Heidelberg.