The relatively low number of complaints in recent years is exceptional. Since its establishment in 2002, the Estonian Press Council saw its highest number of complaints yet, 87, in 2017.

This year, the Press Council issued 49 decisions, including rulings on some complaints submitted late last year. Of these, 28 were acquittals, and 21 were condemnatory decisions. In 2022, in comparison, the council issued 40 decisions, including 23 acquittals and 17 condemnations.

Six complaints were rejected this year, and seven were resolved by mutual agreement. As of the beginning of the week, another two complaints were still under review.

According to Merili Nikkolo, chair of the Estonian Press Council and editor-in-chief of the weekly Eesti Ekspress, one possible explanation is that people's minds were elsewhere during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to fewer complaints being filed.

"The desire to file complaints, go to court, send demand letters is actually growing," she noted.

Legal involvement increasing

Lawyers are increasingly being involved in these discussions as well.

Nikkolo observed that in the past, if someone was personally bothered by a particular story  – due to being misquoted or misrepresented, for example – they would write directly to the paper's editorial office, which would then respond and clarify the reasoning behind their choices.

More recently, handling complaints at the Press Council has gotten rather complex, as it has increasingly turned into reading legal documents, she noted.

"Now it's common for a lawyer from a law firm to write to us with a detailed letter explaining why an article deserves a condemnatory decision," the council chair said. "And then a jurist responds on behalf of the newspaper's editorial office, providing an equally lengthy justification for why the editorial office acted appropriately and merits an acquittal."

The Press Council has not kept track of how many disputes end up in court. Some complainants take their concerns straight to court, while others keep it to just a demand letter or settle out of court.

Nature of complaints still the same

Meanwhile, the nature of the complaints themselves has remained largely unchanged over the years.

Most of this year's violations involved issues such as inaccurate or misleading information, distinguishing between news, opinions and speculation, or the failure to provide an opportunity to comment.

"Broadly speaking, we're still handling and debating whether a journalist has been accurate in their reporting, whether information has been distorted, and whether a distinction has been made between facts and opinions," Nikkolo said, listing common topics of debate.

"Another very typical complaint is that 'I wasn't given a chance to speak, or enough of a chance,'" she continued. "Or whether a headline is judgmental or misleading."

The council chair noted that disagreements can sometimes arise because a source doesn't have much experience in dealing with the media, and their expectations differ from those of the journalist – such as when someone complains that they weren't given the chance to review the story before it was published.

"But that isn't how it works; a journalist isn't obligated to share the story beforehand unless otherwise agreed on," she explained. "Or someone was unhappy that their name was published without their consent – for instance, in a press release issued by a court."

Occasionally, people will reach out to the Press Council because they believe a publication has refused to publish their rebuttal, when the complainant is moreso interested in having not a rebuttal, but a separate opinion piece published.

"In journalistic terms, a rebuttal is meant to correct specific factual errors in a story," Nikkolo clarified.

More detailed complaints mean more of journalist's time

According to Nikkolo, the increasing legal specificity of these complaints shouldn't actually impact journalists' work.

"But I can't 100 percent rule out that at the back of a journalist's mind is the knowledge that publishing a story could easily result in them being taken to the Press Council or court," she acknowledged. Accordingly, more consideration is now being given to the possible burden of proof.

"At Eesti Ekspress, for example, we handle a lot of complex stories, and we have weekly discussions with our in-house lawyer," the paper's editor-in-chief acknowledged.

"Journalists need to know that, for example, we have to retain all materials related to an article organized and archived, as they may be needed later as evidence," she continued. "We must be absolutely confident that every word we publish – that we don't publish it carelessly."

Nikkolo brought up a recent case in which a ten-page complaint was filed, prompting a ten-page response from the journalist, drawn up in cooperation with their lawyer.

"It's an enormous amount of work," she said. "It takes a journalist several days just to respond to that."

According to the Estonian Press Council chair, some complaints are unjustified, and appear intended to intimidate journalists or hinder their work.

"There are quite a few such cases," Nikkolo noted. "And of course, when a complaint is filed, we have to respond. And this disrupts the journalist's work, and takes up a significant amount of their time."

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