Press Complaints Committee – not worth the paper(s) it passes judgement on?

Westminster’s Culture, Media and Sports Committee has recommended a whole new range of powers for the Press Complaints Commission, following an investigation into press standards and libel in the United Kingdom, during which the chairman of the committee referred to the PCC as being seen to “lack credibility and authority“.

Suggesting that the PCC should be renamed the Press Complaints and Standards Commission to better reflect its role as a regulator, it suggests that a deputy director for standards should be appointed.

Considering the current libel laws – about which science writer Simon Singh is currently petitioning the UK’s Court of Appeal, the committee does not come out in favour of a general law of privacy although there appears to be a growing campaign for this to be considered seriously by Westminster law makers.

Interestingly the committee also attack the publishers of the News of the World as ‘suffering collective amnesia’ over the extent of its recent illegal phone tapping, a practice reported widespread by the Guardian, but denied by the News of the World.

The critical report on the PCC follows recent controversy over Jan Moir’s treatment of the death of Steven Gately, referred to by gay rights group Stonewall as “dancing on the grave of a prematurely dead young man”. Following an investigation of this, the PCC concluded that the Moir article ‘just failed to cross the line’ in terms of breaching the PCC’s code of practice. Following this, Stonewall concluded that it was now “very difficult to recommend that anyone from a minority community makes a complaint to the PCC”

Recent critics of the PCC such as the Media Standards Trust have given evidence to the PCC’s review of governance  based on polls which they claim support widespread change to the way the organisation operates. According to their surveys 52% of the public would prefer an independent self-regulatory body rather than the current newspaper industry complaints body. This follows a major report in 2009 criticising the work of the PCC.

However, Sir Christopher Meyer, last year’s retiring chairman of the PCC dismissed the 2009 report at the time  as a “cuttings job masquerading as a serious inquiry” suggesting the PCC will continue to defend what some see as the indefensible but what they see as necessary and independent self-regulation.

How to place a fake story in a Tabloid Newspaper

According to a fascinating story by Gary Neale in the Press Gazette, film makers behind an new feature documentary about the UK tabloids have successfully duped the Sun, the Mirror, the Star and the Express into publishing fake stories by the simple method of phoning up the tip off numbers placed in the tabloids.

Their film, ”Starsuckers’” which opens on 30 October, describes itself as “a feature documentary about the celebrity obsessed media, that uncovers the real reasons behind our addiction to fame and blows the lid on the corporations and individuals who profit from it”. They claim that amongst the stories that they successfully planted were:

• Sparks from a fuse which blew at the flat of singer Amy Whinehouse set fire to her beehive hairdo: Mirror and Star;
• Director Guy Ritchie received a black eye after juggling cutlery: The Sun;
• Singer Sarah Harding is into quantum physics: The Sun;
• Comedian Russell Brand wanted to be a banker when he was a child: Daily Express;
• Pixie Geldof stuffed pick and mix sweets into her bra: The Daily Mirror.

The director of the movie, Chris Atkins, told The Guardian: “Had those fake stories been fact-checked by the newspapers before they were printed, they would have realised – I think within minutes – that they were about to publish complete and utter babble.”

Problems in the Newspaper Industry – what’s the alternative?

With the continuing financial problems facing the press, I’ve been turning my thoughts to different models of financing.  Here’s an extract from the Scott Trust’s website (the owners of the Guardian) about this:

“The Manchester Guardian (now the Guardian) was founded in 1821 to support social reform in the aftermath of the Peterloo massacre. The newspaper gained an international reputation under long-serving editor and latterly owner CP Scott (pictured above).

The Scott Trust was created in 1936 following the death of CP Scott and his son Edward in 1932. Edward’s brother John was left as the sole owner, and was faced with the threat of death duties, which would have crippled the business and jeopardised the future independence of the newspaper.

To avoid this, and to secure his father’s legacy of the Manchester Guardian’s independent liberal journalism, John Scott voluntarily renounced all financial interest in the business for himself and his family, putting all his shares – worth more than £1 million at the time – into a trust.

This extraordinary act of philanthropy resulted in a unique form of media ownership in the UK, which has now lasted more than 70 years.

The core purpose of the Scott Trust is:

• To secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity: as a quality national newspaper without party affiliation; remaining faithful to its liberal tradition; as a profit-seeking enterprise managed in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
• All other activities should be consistent with the central objective. The Company which the Trust owns should: be managed to ensure profits are available to further the central objective; not invest in activities which conflict with the values and principles of the Trust.
• The values and principles of the Trust should be upheld throughout the Group. The Trust declares a subsidiary interest in promoting the causes of freedom in the press and liberal journalism, both in Britain and elsewhere.”

Some people have recently argued that in Scotland, one way to consolidate the the Herald and the Scotsman might be to merge them and put on a similar foundation. However whether the political and financial exists to put aside media firm (and Scottish East West) rivalry is extremely unlikely. In addition, recent troubles at the Observer – sister paper of the Guardian, have put the financial advantages of such a trust in a less than perfect light.

Pressure increases on BBC as BNP given Radio 1 coverage

Increased pressure is being put on the BBC following what is being argued as shaky handling of the British National Party in terms of broadcasting rights.

Recently two officials of the BNP were interviewed on BBC’s main youth channel Radio 1 Newsbeat  as ‘young supporters’ of the far right party. A link to the BNP website was also provided from the Newsbeat on-line page. No equivalent link however was given to the anti-nazi research group Searchlight who specialise in examining the activities of the BNP and other far-right groups

It is known that the BNP has been cultivating a youth audience for several years, and critics feel the interview was far from challenging to the claims made by the neo-nazis. Critics also feel the BBC was guilty of giving a false impression to its listeners given the true identity of those interviewed was hidden.

This was condemned by Cabinet minister Peter Hain who wrote  in The Guardian:

“BBC executives have told me of their obligation to respect the right of a minority who have voted for the BNP. However, that right is already adequately upheld in BNP party election broadcasts, and when they are interviewed on political programmes such as Today or Newsnight – although the recent Radio 1 Newsbeat interview with two ‘young BNP members’ casts serious doubt on the BBC’s grip of the subject.”

Hain points out that  the BBC did not reveal that the individuals were BNP publicity director Mark Collett (who with Nick Griffiths had previously stood trial for inciting racial hatred – something else not mentioned in the interview) and Joseph Barber, who runs BNP record label Great White Records.

Hain said: “If the content were not distasteful enough – descriptions of the London-born England footballer Ashley Cole as ‘not ethnically British’ and ‘coming to this country’ passed without proper challenge – even more worrying is the revelation that these members, still introduced simply as Joey and Mark on the BBC website, are key members of the BNP hierarchy…Would the BBC allow any other party’s spin doctors to appear anonymously? The interview was in clear breach of basic journalistic practice, and of official BBC and National Union of Journalist guidelines. Read more

Setting the standards at the Beeb

The public are being asked to set the standards within the BBC on issues such as impartiality, how war, religion and politics are covered, and on matters that might cause harm and offence to listeners. These and other editorial guidelines have been put out to public consultation for the first time – normally they are decided behind closed doors every five years.

The independence of the BBC is guaranteed in its Royal Charter, which also sets out the five Public Purposes of the BBC. These are:

• sustaining citizenship and civil society;
• promoting education and learning;
• stimulating creativity and cultural excellence;
• representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities;
• bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK;

In carrying out the above, the BBC is also expected to deliver to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services as well as taking a leading role in the switchover to digital television.

The BBC’s Editorial Values and Editorial Guidelines stem from this overall approach, and they apply to all BBC content whether it is made by the BBC itself or by an independent company working for it.

The BBC has asked that comments and ideas are submitted to them by 24th December 2009. The draft editorial guidelines can be found here, and details of how to contribute can be found here.

It would be a good initiative if students on the MAMJ course could give the BBC the benefits of their insights by that time – particularly with regard to the ethical issues that are raised in broadcasting.

Blogging in favour of Asylum Seekers

Some disgraceful coverage last week in the British press of the forceful clearing of the so called “Jungle” camp of asylum seekers near Calais. The epithet ‘Jungle’ seemed to be used with some glee by various commentators in the press, the clear implication for me being that those in this temporary camp were somehow akin to animals – certainly different from you and I. Even the BBC to its disgrace used the epithet when reporting on the clearing – never to my knowledge – drawing attention to the racist undertones of the term.  Marie Barbier, a journalist from ‘l’Humanite’ the daily paper of the French Communist Party has been regularly blogging about the plight of the ‘sans-papiers’ (those without papers – ie authorisation to stay). Her blog – ‘laissezpasser.info‘ (in French) is a good example of trying to give a voice to those who do not get into the traditional media.

Security Council Vote may help Postgraduate Journalism

The United Nations Security Council yesterday unanimously approved a resolution to rid the world of nuclear weapons, a move seen by some as a prerequisite for preventing a future nuclear holocaust in which the majority of humanity – including postgraduate students would perish. In what was seen as a historic vote, Russia, China, the UK, France and the developing nations supported the US sponsored motion, something which may give some impetus to the process of nuclear disarmament – an idea which has seen very little real progress since the end of the cold war. Britain had earlier in the week announced that its Trident submarine fleet would be reduced from four to three – a move which government spin doctors heralded as a major change in approach, although critics from the Peace Movement while generally being positive in their response, pointed out that this was not a major change, given that the fourth submarine was always seen more as ‘insurance’ and not a key part of the UKs nuclear arsenal.  At the same time Brian Quail the secretary of Scottish CND called for some honest reporting by journalists of this issue, claiming that the phrase ‘nuclear deterrent’ was in effect an example of ‘weasel words’ and that the phrase ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ was a more ethically correct phrase. Quoting Confucius he said that the way to ‘restore honour and virtue to the state’ was by ‘giving things their proper name’ and that there should be a veto on ‘this most vile of euphemisms’