General Complaint
“General Complaint” – a complaint filed by an individual who is not named or clearly alluded to in the news report in question, but addresses alleged breaches of journalistic fairness, accuracy or ethics of any published or broadcast news story or editorial appearing in Minnesota. Complainants with General Complaints are asked to review the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics or the news outlet’s own ethics code and select which tenets of the code they believe apply to their complaint. General complaints are not subject to News Council public hearings, but are presented to news outlets for a response, and are publicly reported in general terms as to the issues, but not the parties involved.