Sim-O

Jon Slattery…

Lord Hunt, PCC chairman since October, told Exaro in an interview with David Hencke: “At the moment, it is like the Wild West out there. We need to appoint a sheriff.”

His initial plan for online media is to invite bloggers who write on current affairs to volunteer to be regulated by the replacement body for the PCC.

Lord Hunt wants a ‘kitemark’ style badge for bloggers, who will have to pay for the privelige.

When this type of thing was suggested for the papers at last years Editors Cose review it was given no thought at all. I realise that the PCC was Baroness Buscombe then, but still. The idea of regulating blogs was also raised by the PCC then, and the response was a big resounding no by bloggers. How would it work? Who would it cover? It would just be unenforcable etc.

Lord Hunt should concentrate on getting together a proper regulatory process with proper sanctions before trying to widen his remit.

Until then, Lord Hunt can go fuck himself.

I said earlier I was going to write a post but now it actually comes to it, like it seems so many other times lately, what do I write a post about?

The News International/News Corp./News of the World hacking scandal (I fucking hate the the term ‘hackgate’)? Well, I don’t have any news that you can’t anywhere else, and be more accurate and more recent too. An incisive bit of opinion that’ll make you think? Not that either.

So what do I have instead? Not a fucking lot. To give my mind some time to think while I type go and check out Septicisles’ musings on the Murdoch situation and Tim is doing his own digging in the archives to give the FBI somewhere to start looking to help bring the Murdoch empire down. Give him some support, would you. (See? even the first two links I have for you aren’t exactly original, are they? What hope have I got of writing an interesting blog post?)

Oh, and Unity at the Ministry of Truth has been kicking the absolute shit out of Nadine Dorries too, which is always a joy.

The PCC are running scared. Uponnothing hits the PCC bang on the head with just why, exactly, they are a bag of shit and are less than pointless and irrelevant using the example of a couple of women, who were raped, that had had their anonymity revealed by a paper. The PCC condemned the actions of the paper and adjudicated against them in, for the PCC, the strongest terms. What was the strongest punishment that could be handed to the offending paper?

[The PCC} contacted the owners so that they could ensure it never happened again. All well and good you might think, but imagine of this kind of adjudication happened in any other walk of life. Would the tabloids be happy if a teenager found guilty of doing something ‘exceedingly serious’ was not punished in any way, instead the judge just passed on his thoughts to the parents in the hope that they could take the appropriate action?

What if the Chief Executive of Trinity Mirror doesn’t do anything? What would the PCC do in that case? What could they do in that case?

And that is the problem with the PCC. It can do fuck all else except point a finger and that doesn’t seem to be stopping the usual suspects and transgressing the code, as the more prominent media bloggers highlight on a daily basis.

Anyway, this post about bugger all has taken me far, far longer to write than it’ll take you to read, and I’m sorry to have wasted your time waffling on about fuck all, so I’ll leave you with a link to a site that should’ve gone on my blogroll ages ago, but you know what sort of waste of space I am. It’s called Stuff and Nonsense, written by jdc325. Enjoy.

Not that it’s of any importance, but I spotted this (click to enlarge)…

Google reassures us the News of the World is (or was) regulated by the PCC

Like I say, it’s not important, but just curious as Google doesn’t reassure us that any of the other national newpaper websites are regulated by the PCC.

The Press Complaints Commission. In a nutshell is there to make help rectify inaccuracies in the printed media. It doesn’t help itself when itself is inaccurate.

The PCC recently claimed that the public has not lost confidence in it, but according to PCC Watch, the PCC needs to be clearer.

In it’s defence the PCC claimed 1700 rulings issued and more than 550 complaints resolved, but…

It is hard to understand how the PCC reached that figure. The 2009 annual report did not use the term ruling and the 2010 report is yet to be published. In the 550 resolved complaints the PCC does not come to a ruling – and Abell’s language suggests that the numbers are distinct. The PCC only actually adjudicated 44 complaints in 2010, of which 24 were not upheld. The PCC’s website records complaints about just 527 different articles.

and claimed more to have prevented more intrusive information being published more than 100 times whereas it cannot prevent anything, it can only advise.

and with the poll The PCC conducted to get the 79% of people have no concerns about the PCC, they used a company called Toluna…

Toluna is not a member of the British Polling Council, the self-regulatory organisation for opinion pollsters. Its services are not used by newspapers to commission opinion polls. Neither the questions asked of respondents nor the full results of the survey have been published.

It’s not really good enough for an regulatory body and pretty much sums up the PCC as whole.

As if you didn’t already know, but Northern and Shell, the publishers of Richard Desmonds media titles, has stopped paying its subscription to the Press Board of Finance (PressBof). As a result, they have been excluded from the self regulation system run by the PCC.

There’s enough comment about the blogosphere on it, but my post, written yesterday, is over at Expresswatch, if you’re interested.

The Daily Star ran a story, not too long ago. What with not reading the Daily Star very often I missed it and it has now been taken down from it’s website. This was due to two small factual errors (well, I say errors but…).

The PCC has adjudicated…

The front-page article had reported that a Rochdale shopping centre had installed “Muslim-only squat-hole loos” and that the local council had wasted “YOUR money” on them. The complainant argued that as the facilities would be available to everyone, it was inaccurate to state they were “Muslim-only”. Nor was taxpayers’ money involved, as the decision to pay for them had been taken by the shopping centre, not by the local council. The newspaper, while claiming that the toilets had been designed with Muslims in mind, nonetheless accepted that both its headline was inaccurate, and that the toilets were paid for by a private developer as opposed to the council. It removed the original article from its website and offered to publish a page 2 correction.

Once again, the PCC has excelled itself.

The Daily Star has portrayed these toilets as public. They may be open to the public, but they aren’t in the sense of the council paying for and having responsibility for them. The central claim that makes this story a story is false, because not a penny of taxpayers money was spent on them. That’s without the completely false headline. This story should just never have happened.

And what does the slavering, razor-toothed beast of a regulating body do? It accepted an offer of a page 2 correction.

This was a front page story. Shouldn’t an editor make sure that the biggest story of the day be correct? Shouldn’t a big, *ahem* ‘mistake’ like this need more than a correction hidden inside the paper when the, *ahem* ‘error’ was on the front?

This sort of ‘mistake’ shouldn’t happen. when it does, the PCC needs to be able to do more. Self regulation isn’t working.

This adjudication highlights not only the inadequacies of the PCC but also the agenda of Richard Desmonds publications, and arguably, the man himself.

Is this supposed to be an annual report?

THE Press lives by disclosure. And so, as an industry, we can’t complain when caught in the headlights of public scrutiny. Nor do we. It is healthy, and we welcome it.

(*ahem*

What seems to have upset them are ads that the Indy has been running along the lines of “Rupert Murdoch won’t decide this election – you will.” Brooks apparently rang Simon Kelner, the editor-in-chief and now chief executive of the Indy to complain that dog does not eat dog in Fleet Street.

That means that editors and owners do not attack each other in person – not their politics, their finances or their private lives. Remember the running battle, later patched up, between the Daily Mail and the once-mighty Daily Express over the former’s habit of referring (correctly) to Express owner Richard Desmond as a pornographer? That sort of thing.)

Indeed, in a particularly onerous year for searching examinations of press self regulation, the beam has not been shone solely externally – via a lengthy inquiry by the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee – but also from within.

As well as the Code Committee’s annual review of the Code of Practice, a Governance Review panel has been looking at the work of the Press Complaints Commission – both processes in which the public was encouraged to engage.

A particularly onerous year? A PPC code review, a Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee inquiry and a governance review.

One happens annually so it’s not like it snuck up and surprised them, another was brought on by themselves but shouldn’t have caused too much bother if those involved had turned up and answered the questions truthfully and the third was going happen sooner or later. Excuse me if I don’t really give a shit.

We learn a lot from the public and other responses to such exercises. Much of it is constructive and helpful. But, alarmingly, many of the submissions expose a huge ignorance about how self-regulation works – often from those who should know better, in Parliament, in self-appointed media accountability groups and, more generally, in the blogosphere.

Myths abound and occasionally prejudice, too. Many mindsets remain firmly locked. Our mission is not just to improve the Code and the system of self-regulation, but to transform people’s understanding – or misunderstanding – of how it works.

For example, a doctor wrote to the Code Committee with a potential remedy for what he saw, quite sincerely, as the ills of Press self-regulation. He wondered politely if it might be a good idea if the PCC recruited lay members on to its adjudicating panel, as does the General Medical Council. When we explained that PCC lay commissioners outnumbered editors by ten to seven, he was genuinely surprised; not least, perhaps, because the GMC has only 50% lay membership.

Any chance of a quote, even an anonymous quote, from an MP, a blogger or from one of the ‘self appointed media-accountability groups’? Anthing? No?

And what’s the difference between a ‘self appointed media accountability group’ and the PCC? Oh, yes. One has no vested interest within the press itself.

But the myth persists that the Press is the sole judge in its own court and that editors sit in on hearings about their own or sister newspapers. They don’t. They leave the room and take no part.

Just because an editor has no official part in an adjudication, doesn’t mean he has no influence. The others doing the adjudicating will be well aware of how they might also be harshly treated too.

Another fable is that the Code Committee Chairman also runs the PCC. In fact, the Code Committee is an industry body that writes, reviews and revises the Code, which the PCC – as an entirely separate and independent entity within the self-regulatory system, with its own eminent Chairman – administers. As Code Committee Chairman, I have no role in the PCC or its deliberations, nor would I wish to have.

*phew*

But I remain more committed than ever to the belief that if Britain’s magazine and newspaper editors are to be locked into self-regulation, both in spirit and practice, then they must set their own code. The shame of censure by their peers is far greater for editors than that resulting from any penalty imposed by an outside body – which most papers would devote considerable ingenuity into trying to circumvent.

The shame of censure by their peers? Is that really as bad as Dacre makes out? If so why did these two have to go to court?

Regarding the Commission, it is worth pointing out that the lay representation within the UK press system is the highest of any European press council. But then, the Editors’ Code itself is widely copied internationally and a European Commissioner has praised The Editors’ Codebook, which acts as a public guide to how the system works in practice, as a leading exemplar of its kind.

Just because something is being copied doesn’t make it good. It usually just means what is being copied is the least worst.

As for the Select Committee, its report itself made some very positive and useful points, especially in relation to defamation law and legal costs, but it didn’t do itself justice by suggesting that newspapers guilty of breaching the Code should be suspended for a day and that fines should be imposed. The first suggestion would bring joy to Robert Mugabe. The second would have Messrs Sue, Grabbit and Runne rubbing their greedy hands with glee. It cannot be said too often that the imposition of sizable fines would result in complainants and particularly the press having to use lawyers to defend their interests – signalling the death of a FREE fast system of complaints adjudication.

Well, what about that? Dacre invoking the modern day version of Godwins’ Law in the spirit of Mugabe. If a independent regulatory body was able to impose a sanction of suspending publication for a day or two then it would be after investigation and have to be independent from government and also the press themselves. This is a little different from someone in power imposing a ban on a publication because of taking a dislike to the previous days headline.

The current system may be free but that doesn’t make it any good. Don’t the lawyers already get involved when anything more than an insincere apology is required or deserved? And what sort of regulatory organisation negotiates it’s sanctions?
As for fast? I put it that the average case time is months, not weeks, which is appalling when it is peoples reputations and lives affected by what is written by the press. How can that be an effective form of justice when the apology and/or correction appears so long after the article appears that no one connects the two.

As I’ve noted, many of the submissions to the Code Review, to the PCC Governance Panel or indeed, some parts of the Select Committee’s Report sadly perpetuate opinions founded more in prejudice and preconception than fact.

The sadness is that much of this criticism simply misses the point, for it is an ineluctable truth that many provincial newspapers and some nationals are now in a near-terminal economic condition.

If our critics spent as much zeal trying to help reverse this tragic situation and work out how good journalism – which is, by its nature, expensive – is going to survive financially in an internet age, then democracy and the public’s right to know would be much better served.

What has the decline of local and some national papers got to do with how they are regulated? Why should anything apart from a private company put effort into making sure that that private company survive? Why should customers tell a company how to make a profit?

There is also no logic in Dacres argument here: We shouldn’t fine papers for reporting lies and falsehoods, smear and libel, because it would hurt the industry that has failed to get a grip of the internet. Maybe, it would be better to report the truth and not make things up as a way of avoiding fines? That way there would be more money in the kitty to pay for this expensive journalism.

Certainly, the critics of self-regulation are entitled to expect more of us and we must continue to develop the Code and explain better how it works. But, by the same test, we are also entitled to expect more of many of our detractors in Parliament and in these self-appointed media accountability groups.

What right does Dacre think he has to expect anything of these groups?

They will probably never concede the truth, which is that the PCC has over the years been a great success story. Britain’s newspapers are infinitely better behaved than they were two decades ago. Yes, the industry can do more to improve standards. We will rise to our challenge. If our critics will rise to theirs, today’s often-corrosive debate could become instead tomorrow’s constructive way forward.

The truth is that the papers behaviour has improved. What is conjecture is whether the PCC has had a hand in this or not. What is the challenge of the critics? The critics aren’t mandated to anyone.

THREE changes to clarify and strengthen the Code were introduced in 2009, covering Privacy, Harassment and the Public Interest.

The Privacy Clause (3) was expanded to make clear that the PCC will take into account relevant previous disclosures by the complainant, which codifies the Commission’s existing practice.

The Harassment Clause (4) introduced a requirement for journalists in situations where harassment could become an issue to identify themselves, if requested to do so. This followed an external submission to the Code Review, which accorded with most current custom and practice.

The Public Interest exceptions were amended so that the test would be whether the editor had a reasonable belief at the time that his or her action was in the public interest. This modification, taken in accordance with recent legal developments, means editors must now demonstrate that they had good reason to believe their intrusion was justified. We believe these changes will further consolidate existing good practice into the Code.

FINALLY, the Code Committee has undergone a sea change in the last 12 months. Six members stepped down, some after many years’ service. They were: Adrian Faber, of the Express and Star, Wolverhampton; Mike Gilson, then of The Scotsman; Doug Melloy, of the Rotherham and South Yorkshire Advertiser; David Pollington of the Sunday Post; Alan Rusbridger, of The Guardian, and Neil Wallis, of the News of the World. I thank them all for their commitment and wisdom, which has been invaluable.

We welcomed in their place: Damian Bates, Evening Express, Aberdeen (Scottish Newspaper Society); Colin Grant, Iliffe News and Media East (Newspaper Society); Geordie Greig, Evening Standard (Newspaper Publishers Association); Mike Sassi, Staffordshire Sentinel News and Media (NS); Hannah Walker, South London Press (NS); and Richard Wallace, Daily Mirror (NPA). They join Neil Benson, Trinity Mirror Regional Newspapers (Newspaper Society); Jonathan Grun, Press Association (NPA); Ian Murray, Southern Evening Echo (NS);June Smith-Sheppard, Pick Me Up magazine (Periodical Publishers Association); Harriet Wilson, Conde-Nast Publications (PPA); and John Witherow, Sunday Times (NPA).

It is a team of great experience in every reach of print journalism and I’m very pleased to have them on board to help face the many challenges ahead.

Paul Dacre
July 2010

As you can see, if you follow the link to our petition, iPetitons dog ate it.

For all his efforts, Tim couldn’t get iPetitions to feed it some canine laxatives so we could have it back in a timely manner, and so is still waiting the data that was collected and probably won’t see it this side of March. Which will be too late.

So what we need you to do, even if you left your name and suggestions for the review on the petition is to send an email to:

Vivien Hepworth, Chairman, (PCC) Independent Governance Review:
governancereview@pcc.org.uk

This one needs to be done today (25 January) as it closes today. If you do not want your submission to be made public, you will have to specifically tell them. Also send you suggestions to:

Ian Beales, Code Committee Secretary, Editor’s Code of Practice Committee:
ianbeales@mac.com

The deadline for this one is 31 January.

Here are the five suggestions on the original petition…

SUGGESTION ONE: Like-for-like placement of retractions, corrections and apologies in print and online (as standard).
Retractions, corrections, and apologies should normally be at least equally prominent to the original article, in both print and online editions. Any departure from this rule should only be in exceptional circumstances, and the onus on showing such circumstances should be on the publication.

SUGGESTION TWO: Original or redirected URLs for retractions, corrections & apologies online (as standard).

Retractions, corrections, and apologies in respect of online articles should always be displayed either at the original URL or at a URL to which the reader is redirected.

SUGGESTION THREE: The current Code contains no reference to headlines, and this loophole should be closed immediately.

Headlines should be covered by the same rules as the rest of a story. Further, headlines and titles for links should never be misleading in what they imply or offer and should always be substantiated by the article/contents.

SUGGESTION FOUR: Sources to be credited unless they do not wish to be credited or require anonymity/protection.

Sources should normally be credited. Any departure from this rule should only be when the source does not wish to be credited or if the source requires anonymity/protection.

SUGGESTION FIVE: A longer and more interactive consultation period for open discussion of more fundamental issues.

I submit all of the above without implying support for the PCC, the remainder of Code as it stands, or even the concept of self-regulation, and request that the 20th year of the PCC be marked with an open debate about its progress to date, and its future direction.

There is also a post at Liberal Conspiracy where submissions can also be left via the comments.

If reading a page full of text about how the PCC Editors Code of Practice could be improved isn’t your thing and you’d rather watch a lovely spangley video with some great music, then watch this (there’s even a game at the end for you to enjoy).

go and sign the petition and maybe even leave your own suggestion.

Oh, and tell yer mates, too.

Update: A quick note from Tim Ireland…

[NOTE – It’s probably something to do with the sudden popularity of our petition, but ipetitions.com have now started displaying a donation page (instead of a ‘thank you’ page) after you submit your details. I understand why ipetitions.com have done this – and Dog knows they deserve a donation or two for providing a superior petition service – but I’m less-than-impressed by the way they’ve gone about it. At this stage, I can only apologise for this unexpected feature and provide new people with advance warning; you do not have to make a donation for your signature to register.]

The PCC is holding its’ annual review of its’ Code of Practice, the rules that govern the behaviour of the press and it’s members.

The PCC want suggestions from, not just the industry itself, but from the general public too.

(Update: We will also be submitting our suggestions to the to the Independent Governance Review in time for the 25 Jan 2010 deadline

A few of us bloggers that take an interest in this sort of thing have got together and come up with some suggestions, which we feel, should be a priority for the PCC to incorporate into its’ Code of Practice, while we await and try to get started a bigger discussion of who and how it should regulate.

The idea being a ‘safety in numbers’ thing, the more people put their names to these suggestions the harder it will be for the PCC to ignore than if a lot of suggestions come from individuals.

We need you to sign the petition and also, in the comments section, you can leave you’re own suggestion. The petition will be delivered in a format that means that any individual suggestions can be responded to by the PCC, not just the main group petition. You can use a nickname or your real name (if you use your real name it can be hidden from public view if you wish) and the PCC will still count as valid.

For more, see Bloggerheads.com

The text of the petition is below, just follow the link and digitally sign it, please.

SUGGESTION ONE: Like-for-like placement of retractions, corrections and apologies in print and online (as standard).

Retractions, corrections, and apologies should normally be at least equally prominent to the original article, in both print and online editions. Any departure from this rule should only be in exceptional circumstances, and the onus on showing such circumstances should be on the publication.

SUGGESTION TWO: Original or redirected URLs for retractions, corrections & apologies online (as standard).

Retractions, corrections, and apologies in respect of online articles should always be displayed either at the original URL or at a URL to which the reader is redirected.

SUGGESTION THREE: The current Code contains no reference to headlines, and this loophole should be closed immediately.

Headlines should be covered by the same rules as the rest of a story. Further, headlines and titles for links should never be misleading in what they imply or offer and should always be substantiated by the article/contents.

SUGGESTION FOUR: Sources to be credited unless they do not wish to be credited or require anonymity/protection.

Sources should normally be credited. Any departure from this rule should only be when the source does not wish to be credited or if the source requires anonymity/protection.

SUGGESTION FIVE: A longer and more interactive consultation period for open discussion of more fundamental issues.

We submit all of the above without implying support for the PCC, the remainder of Code as it stands, or even the concept of self-regulation, and request that the 20th year of the PCC be marked with an open debate about its progress to date, and its future direction.

–

Further issues or suggestions may be included as a ‘comment’ and individual responses to these concerns/suggestions (via the corresponding email address) would be appreciated.

Thank you.

sign here

These suggestions were decided upon by Tim Ireland, Kevin Arscott, Adam Bienkov, Dave Cross, Sunny Hundal, Jack of Kent, Justin McKeating, MacGuffin, Mark Pack, septicisle, Jamie Sport, Clive Summerfield, Unity, Anton Vowl.