Complaint archives 

The 'Asian Angst' article was the subject of three complaints to the Press Council: a group complaint from prominent members of diverse Asian communities and their supporters, including academics, arts practitioners, journalists, and the New Zealand Chinese Association, coordinated by Tze Ming Mok; one from the Asia:NZ Foundation; and one from the Head of Massey University School of Journalism.

The following timeline includes all available paperwork relating to the three 'Asian Angst' complaints. For records of the 1993 'Inv-Asian' article controversy and complaint please view the documents on this flickr set.

13 Nov 2006

'Asian Angst: is it time to send some back?' by Deborah Coddington published as cover story [Word Document] of North & South's December issue.  Numerous critical letters were sent to North & South, and critical opinion pieces were also published in the English and Chinese language media.  

20 Nov 2006

Letter of complaint to Robyn Langwell, editor of North & South [PDF] sent by Charles Mabbett, Media Advisor of the Asia:NZ Foundation, requesting that the magazine take editorial responsibility for correcting the imbalance and inaccuracies of the article. The letter was not for publication, and included an appended critique of the article [PDF].

29 Nov 2006

Letter of complaint to Robyn Langwell, editor of North & South [PDF] sent by Tze Ming Mok on behalf of community leaders, journalists, academics and artists from the New Zealand Asian communities and supporters (later included as an Appendix of the Press Council complaint). The letter was not for publication, but requested published corrections and an editorial apology from North & South, noting that if their response was not satisfactory, Press Council action would be taken.

11 Dec 2006

January issue of North & South published.  The issue included many letters critical of the article, but no editorial correction of statistical error or editorial apology. It included a defense of the article by Editor Robyn Langwell.[PDF]  Deborah Coddington was given right of a reply to a letter by Keith Ng [PDF], challenging the validity of his statistical analysis that clearly pointed to a decrease in 'Asian' crime rates.

13 Dec 2006

Asia:NZ Foundation complaint to the Press Council [PDF] prepared and lodged by Charles Mabbett, appending his original critique of the article [PDF].  The complaint sought a finding that the article had breached the Press Council's principles governing discrimination and accuracy. 

18 Dec 2006

Group complaint to the Press Council [PDF] prepared and lodged by Tze Ming Mok.  Appendices included Appendix of statistics [PDF] on 'Asian crime', the original letter of complaint to North & South (see above), a copy of the 'Asian Angst' article (full text here) and letters pages (see above) from the following January issue of North & South, published 11 December. The complaint sought a finding that the article had breached the Press Council's principle governing accuracy, noting that the article also had discriminatory intent

12 Mar 2007 

Composite response from ACP Media and Deborah Coddington sent to the group complainants and Asia:NZ.  ACP briefly defended its fact-checking process.  Ms Coddington's response here: [PDFs] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Ms Coddington's comments were later described by the Press Council as "disingenuous."  Her comments did not address the points raised regarding accuracy, and also generated further inaccuracies, misquotes, misattributions and misspellings.  Notably, at page 3 of her response, Ms Coddington restated the statistically misleading point she earlier made in the January issue letters section of North & South, that her critics were not comparing "like with like" - despite the group complaint's use of statistics [PDF] based on those she used in the article, in order to specifically compare "like with like." 

12 Mar 2007

Letter of complaint sent to Robyn Langwell, Editor of North & South from Grant Hannis [PDF], Head of the Massey University School of Journalism.  The letter complained that North & South had published in its January issue, editorial obfuscations of valid statistical criticism of the 'Asian Angst' article, specifically around its misrepresentation of Asian crime rates.

19 Mar 2007

The group complaint's response to ACP Media and Deborah Coddington [PDF] sent to the Press Council by Tze Ming Mok, noting that the journalist's response and the response from the publisher in the cover letter, failed to directly address the complaint. 

The Asia:NZ complaint's response to ACP Media and Deborah Coddington [PDF] sent by Charles Mabbett, restating that the article misused statistics and was unbalanced, and appending a letter published in a following issue of North & South from Journalist Lincoln Tan, in which Mr Tan repudiated the manner in which he was quoted in the article.

29 Mar 2007

Complaint to the Press Council lodged by Grant Hannis [PDF], Head of Massey University School of Journalism, replicating the points in his initial letter to North & South, noting that he had received no satisfactory response from the magazine.

5 Apr 2007 

Response from Deborah Coddington sent to Grant Hannis [PDF] through the Press Council.  In addressing his statistical figures, she states that taking the extra step of referring to the numerator (ie the doubling of the Asian population) when discussing an increase in Asian arrests would "insult the intelligence of my readers."  She also alleges, again, that "Dr Hannis is not comparing like with like. I find it interesting that someone who leads a journalism school at a university noted for its journalism training does not seem to understand the basic concepts in constructing a relevant and balanced argument."

12 Apr 2007

Response from Grant Hannis to Deborah Coddington [PDF] sent to Press Council: "Ms Coddington says I did not compare like with like. She has provided no evidence to support this contention. Let me be clear. To construct the Asian crime rate I used the same Asian population for the same offence measure and years Ms Coddington used in her article." He appended crime statistics obtained from Statistics New Zealand and his own calculation of Asian crime rates using the same terms as the article. Statistical appendices [JPEGs]:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.  (Hannis' calculation of 'Asian' crime rates at page 6)

11 Jun 2007

The Press Council rules that the "Asian Angst" article was discriminatory and inaccurate, and that North & South had failed to meet its obligations to Press Council principles. 

Under New Zealand Press Council complaint processes, complainants must first seek satisfaction from the publication itself, allowing a reasonable period for a response, before complaining to the Council. The publication is then allowed two weeks to respond to the Press Council complaint, followed by a further round of responses. For detailed information on Press Council complaints procedure, please see the Press Council's website. For additions and corrections to the timeline, please contact the author of this page.