1. Press Complaints Commission
The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) is a voluntary regulatory body for British
printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major
publishers. The PCC is funded by the annual levy it charges newspapers and
magazines. It has no legal powers – all newspapers and magazines voluntarily
contribute to the costs of, and adhere to the rulings of, the Commission, making the
industry self-regulating.[1]
The PCC received extensive criticism for its lack of action in the News of the World
phone hacking affair, including from MPs and Prime Minister David Cameron, who
called for it to be replaced with a new system in July 2011.[2]
Lord Hunt was appointed Chairman of the Commission in October 2011.[3] In
December 2011 Lord Hunt announced his plans to replace the PCC with a new
independent regulator.[4]
Hunt also wants to introduce a voluntary, paid-for, 'kitemarking' system for blogs. The
kitemark would indicate that the blogger has agreed to strive for accuracy, and to
be regulated. Bloggers would lose their kitemark if complaints against them were
repeatedly upheld. He plans to start the roll-out by targeting bloggers that cover
current affairs.
When asked about his proposals in an interview Hunt said “At the moment, it is like
the Wild West out there. We need to appoint a sheriff.”
History
The precursor to the PCC was the Press Council, a voluntary press organisation
founded in 1953 with the aim of maintaining high standards of ethics in journalism.
However in the late 1980s, several newspapers breached these standards and
others were unsatisfied with the effectiveness of the council. The Home Office thus
set up a departmental committee, headed by Sir David Calcutt, to investigate
whether a body with formal legal powers should be created to regulate the industry.
The report, published in June 1990, concluded that a voluntary body, with a full,
published code of conduct should be given eighteen months to prove its
effectiveness. Should it fail, the report continued, a legally-empowered body would
replace it. Members of the press, keen to avoid external regulation, established the
Press Complaints Commission and its Code of Practice.
The first high-profile case handled by the PCC was brought by HRH The Duke of York
who claimed that the press were invading the privacy of his small children. The
complaint was upheld.
The Commission's first chairman was Lord McGregor of Durris. He was succeeded by
Lord Wakeham in 1995. He resigned in January 2002 after concerns over a conflict of

2. interest when the Enron Corporation collapsed. He had been a member of the
company's audit committee. Sir Christopher Meyer was appointed in 2002 following
a brief period of interim chairmanship by Professor Robert Pinker, leaving in 2008.
In 2006, the PCC received 3,325 complaints from members of the public. Around two
thirds of these were related to alleged factual inaccuracies, one in five related to
alleged invasions of privacy and the rest included the lack of right to reply,
harassment and obtaining information using covert devices. 90% of cases were
resolved to the complainants' satisfaction. 31 of the cases were adjudicated by the
Commission before being resolved as the complainants were initially not satisfied by
the action recommended by the Commission.[7]
In 2009 the PCC received more than 25,000 complaints, a record number, after an
article appeared in the Daily Mail written by Jan Moir about the death of Boyzone
singer Stephen Gately. Moir had described events leading up the death as "sleazy"
and "less than respectable". On 17 February the PCC confirmed that although it was
"uncomfortable with the tenor of the columnist's remarks", it would not uphold the
complaints made.[8]
As of 12 January 2011, the Northern and Shell group (often referred to as the Express
Group) of publications withdrew its subscription to the PCC. According to the PCC,
"a refusal to support the self-regulatory system financially means that a newspaper
publisher effectively withdraws from the PCC's formal jurisdiction, which the PCC
considers regrettable". Consequently the Daily & Sunday Express, Scottish Daily &
Sunday Express, Daily & Sunday Star, OK!, New magazine and Star magazine are no
longer bound by the PCC's code of practice, and the public no longer has recourse
to making complaints through the PCC.[9]
The Guardian newspaper reported[10] in May 2011 that social media messages are to
be brought under the remit of the PCC after it ruled in February 2011 that
information posted on Twitter should be considered public and publishable by
newspapers.[11]
The Code of Practice
Any member of the public, whether a relative unknown or a high-profile figure, is
able to bring a complaint against a publication that had volunteered to meet the
standards of the Code. Members of the Commission adjudicate whether the Code
has indeed been broken, and, if so, suggest appropriate measures of correction.
These have included the printing of a factual correction, an apology or letters from
the original complainant. The Commission does not impose financial penalties on
newspapers found to have broken the Code.
Many publishers have added clauses to the contracts of editors of newspapers and
magazines giving them the option to dismiss editors who are judged to have
breached the PCC Code of Practice. The PCC and its adherents claim that by
attaching personal significance to the role of the PCC in the editors' mind, its role
has become more effective.

3. The section titles of the code of practice on which judgements are made are as
follows:
1. Accuracy
2. Opportunity to reply
3. Privacy
4. Harassment
5. Intrusion into grief or shock
6. Children
7. Children in sex cases
8. Hospitals
9. Reporting of crime
10. Misrepresentation
11. Victims of sexual assault
12. Discrimination
13. Financial journalism
14. Confidential sources
15. Witness payments in criminal trials
16. Payment to criminals
Criticism
In 2001, LabourMPClive Soley said that "other regulatory bodies are far stronger, far
more pro-active and really do represent the consumer. There are no consumer rights
people on the PCC and that is a major failing".[12]
Journalist Nick Davies criticized the PCC for failing to investigate the vast majority of
complaints on technical grounds in his book Flat Earth News (2008), an expose of
modern British newspaper journalism. The MediaWise Trust, a charitable organisation
set up to help people in their dealings with the press says that the self-regulation
system has proved to help the rich but not the poor.[citation needed]
Phone hacking
In February 2010 the Commission was described as "toothless"[13] by the House of
Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee investigating the News of the
World phone hacking affair.
During a House of Commons emergency debate into the same affair on 6 July 2011,
MPs described the PCC as 'well-meaning but a joke', and as much use as 'a
chocolate teapot'.
In a press conference on 8 July 2011, Prime Minister David Cameron described the
PCC as 'inadequate' and 'absent' during the phone hacking affair, and implied that
the organisation would have to be reformed or replaced.

4. Self-regulation
The 2009 British investigative documentary Starsuckers exposed the request to obtain
medical records of celebrities by many of the red-top UK tabloids, and the lack of
PCC action against the papers that had broken the PCC charter.[14] The tabloids ran
the bogus stories about the likes of Amy Winehouse, Pixie Geldof and Guy Ritchie.
Secretly interviewed reporters claimed that "the PCC is run by the newspaper
Editors", "Getting a PCC isn't great, but, a lot of papers just brush it aside, all it is, is a
little apology somewhere in the paper, you get a slap on the wrist, you get reported
by the PCC, but there's no money".[15] The PCC took no action against the papers
that ran these stories but did respond with a letter to the Editor of The Belfast
Telegraph.[16] Chris Atkins the documentary's director response was that the PCC
had yet still not acted on the issue of several newspapers breaking their Code of
conduct 8.2.
Funding
On 24 August 2011, the New Left Project published an article[18] by Julian Petley,
arguing that the PCC is "not, and never has been, a regulator": he presents the case
that the PCC is the equivalent of the customer services department of any large
corporate organisation, responding to customer complaints for most of the British
press. The PCC responded to this article[19] on their own website, asserting that the
PCC is a regulatory organisation which very regularly intervenes "proactively and
pre-publication to prevent tabloid and broadsheet stories appearing" and Jonathan
Collett asserts that this method has an "almost 100% success rate". Petley responded
to Collett in the New Left Project on 26 August[20], asserting that the PCC "lacks
sufficient sanctions to be able to punish effectively those who breach its Code" and
that the problem is not the PCC but its funding (See Press Standards Board of
Finance.)