Sounds too good to be true?
Executive Director
NZ Media Council
79 Boulcott Street
Wellington, 6011 New Zealand
Dear Ms. Major:
This is me: http://tinyurl.com/ych7o7dr
Today I attempted to submit the following complaint via your website, but when I made multiple attempts using your online form, I kept receiving this message and was unable to proceed:
The publication date of the problematic Herald article was 28 October 2021 and, per the Media Council's website, the complaint submission window is but one calendar month - two days from today - so I would greatly appreciate you accepting my complaint via this email.
Would you please review the attached pdf which consists of emails I recently exchanged with Herald columnist Ana Samways? It's in reverse chronology, so please start at the bottom and read up.
Briefly, per my first email to Ms. Samways - dated 29 October and clearly marked PRIVATE EMAIL; NOT FOR PUBLICATION - I explained that she'd made a factual error in this first item from her previous day's Sideswipe column:
1. Henry Heimlich demonstrated his signature manoeuvre thousands of times throughout his life but he never got the chance to use it in an actual emergency until he was 96 when he saved a woman in his nursing home from choking on a burger.
As I explained to Ms. Samways and provided thorough supporting documentation, from 2001-2006 my father had told at least four reporters that he'd saved the life of a choking victim at a Cincinnati, Ohio, restaurant in 2001.
In other words, this part of her item was wrong - (Dr. Heimlich) never got the chance to use (his namesake anti-choking manoeuvre) in an actual emergency until he was 96 (in 2016) - so I requested a published correction.
Instead of correcting her error, without my consent she published this in her 9 November 2021 column:
She then wrote me a rude email in which failed to address her factual error or to answer my question. In my final email, I asked Ms. Samways for her editor's name and email address. I never received a reply, hence this complaint.
But there's more.
When I subsequently revisited the URL of her 28 October column, I discovered her item about my father (with the factual error) had been replaced with this unrelated item without a note to readers explaining the substitution:
To summarize:
1) Instead of correcting a factual error, the Herald entirely replaced part of an article, presumably to "disappear" the error.
2) The Herald published sentences from an email clearly marked PRIVATE EMAIL; NOT FOR PUBLICATION.
Would you please determine if either or both actions are in compliance with your organization's policies and provide me with the results?
Incidentally, per this 30 May 2019 Press Gazette report by Charlotte Tobitt, my efforts revealed that member publications of the UK's Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) could "disappear" articles without recourse. I hope that doesn't go for your organization's member publications.
Thank you for your time/consideration, best of the holiday season, and would you please confirm receipt?
Sincerely,
Peter M. Heimlich
Peachtree Corners, GA 30096 USA
ph: (678)322-7984
e-mail: peter.heimlich@gmail.com
website: http://medfraud.info
blog: http://the-sidebar.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/medfraud_pmh
bio: http://tinyurl.com/ych7o7dr
cc: Charlotte Tobitt, Press Gazette