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.

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

The BBC and the ‘Myth of Impartiality’

The whole debate between ‘an independent BBC’ and the encroachments of a commercially based threat from the likes of Murdoch, is a false one according to a report on Friday’s independent radical media site MediaLens.

Basing themselves on a similar approach to Chomsky and Hermann in their work on manufacturing consent, they argue that while constituted in a different manner to the commercial media, the BBC continues to adopt a pro establishment view and is essentially regulated by a Trust who represent sectors of the British establishment, unlikely to ‘rock the boat’ in any politically meaningful way.

To quote the article at some length (the article is worth reading and can be found here):

“The Trust consists of twelve safe pairs of hands with extensive backgrounds in large corporate media organisations, advertising, banking, finance and industry. We are to believe that these individuals are independent of the government that appointed them, and of the elite corporate and other vested interests in which they are deeply embedded. We are to believe that they will uphold fair and balanced reporting which displays not a hint of bias towards state ideology or economic orthodoxy in a world of rampant corporate power.”

They argue that modern journalism acts to “narrow the range of thought”, thus serving the powerful interests that control the mass media. They do concede that it is not ‘Big Brother’ but argue it is certainly a form of Orwellian “Newspeak”.

Heady stuff. But it’s an argument that needs had. And which is rarely seen in the Media.

Now I wonder why that is?

BBC – safer under the Conservatives?

The BBC appear to be safer under the Conservatives than under Labour – or at least that seems to be the impression which Jeremy Hunt, Tory culture secretary, wished to give in a recent interview in the Guardian.

Interestingly he rejects the recent Murdoch-owned Sunday Times call for the BBC news website to be cut back although argues that the BBC should be careful about expanding its website out of areas that are strictly news.

He also strikes a populist note, pointing out that 47 BBC executives earn the same as, or more than, the prime minister’s £197,689 salary, and that this area would be under scrutiny following a change of Government.

Stressing that the BBC’s independence is sacrosanct, Hunt does not however argue where cuts should take place.

The previous day in a letter to the Guardian Labour Culture secretary Ben Bradshaw had argued that his attack on the BBC the previous week had been misunderstood.

The Guardian editorial had claimed Bradshaw, had signally failed to give the BBC the kind of political support it deserved.

Clearly Jeremy Hunt is trying to play down the links between Murdoch and the Conservative Party in the run up to the election. His public approach is a nuanced one, although the sincerity of his claims must be under doubt given the dreadful track record held by the Conservatives in their previous dealings with the media when in office.

His position has been strengthened somewhat by the recent intemperate attacks on the BBC Trust and the BBC by Labour’s culture secretary Ben Bradshaw.

However it will be interesting to see how Media is dealt with at the Conservative Party conference next week.

Ben Bradshaw becomes bizarre

In a bizarre turn of phrase in his speech to the Labour conference, Culture secretary Ben Bradshaw told delegates that the BBC ‘must be more sensitive to views of public who pay for it’

Yet this is the same culture secretary who told Broadcast magazine last week that he was minded to abolish the BBC Trust – the body put in place only three years ago by Labour to do exactly this – monitor the BBC’s actions on behalf of the licence fee payer.

He also threatened to take this action before the terms of the present BBC Charter runs out. A sound bite to conference arguing for the people to have more say is very tempting for politicians. However, when it is linked to proposals that would prevent the people themselves having more say, then it is either muddled or dishonest. Of course perhaps Mr Bradshaw believes that it is the party in power who have the ability to interpret what the people want – and therefore the right to interfere from that position. Now that isn’t muddled thinking – it’s simply dangerous and undemocratic.

Labour may scrap BBC Trust before Charter Review

According to a report from Broadcast Magazine The row between the BBC Trust and the government has now intensified to the extent that  Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw has suggested he could scrap the Trust before the next Charter Review.

Bradshaw had already raised the Trust’s hackles with his speech to the Royal Television Society’s biennial convention in Cambridge, in which he claimed the governing body’s dual role as ‘regulator and cheerleader’ was unsustainable.

The BBC Trust answered that it should not be judged on its performance until the next Charter Review, ‘many years down the line’, and BBC sources said the governing body was safe until then.

However, Bradshaw later told Broadcast that the Trust was not necessarily safeguarded until the 2017 review, and that it could be changed at the next licence fee settlement, in 2013, instead.

He said he had held talks with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, who agreed that the BBC’s governance system should be changed, and indicated he would seek the BBC’s backing in scrapping the Trust before the Charter Review.

Bradshaw, who is a former BBC reporter, was reluctant to say whether the government would push the change through without BBC agreement.

His comments followed a heated exchange with BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons, in the Q&A session after Bradshaw’s speech, in which Lyons challenged the government for not talking more about licence fee payers and asking the public whether they would like the licence fee returned to them.

Lyons, who was visibly angered, said: ‘It is money which you raised for one purpose and now want to use for a different purpose. It’s about honest taxation.’

However, other leading industry figures welcomed Bradshaw’s statement. Former Endemol executive Peter Bazalgette said it was ‘the most considered and elegant speech from a Culture Secretary since Chris Smith’.”

This claim from Bradshaw comes hot on the heels of James Murdoch’s intemperate attack on the notion of Public Service Broadcasting, claiming that “The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit ” and is in line with increasing moves by Labour and Offcom to allow top slicing of the licence fee – albeit starting with the un-used portion of the fee originally ring-fenced for help with the digital switchover. Some critics of this approach believe that it is essentially a back door method of undermining the BBC and preparing the way for increasing access to the British market of News International.

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’