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KEY BENEFITS OF THE
SYSTEM OF SELF REGULATION
Quick and free The main role of the Press Complaints Commission is to serve members of the public who have complaints about newspapers and magazines. In order to do this effectively, the PCC offers a service which is both quick and free. It costs nothing to complain to the PCC - you do not need a solicitor or anyone else to represent you. (Indeed, thanks to the commitment of the newspaper industry to tough and effective self regulation, there is no burden on the taxpayer either.) Our main aim is always to try and resolve disputes amicably and quickly. Excluding complaints where no breach of the Code is established, or no further action is required, nine out of ten complaints are resolved; and it only takes us, on average, just 35 working days to do so.
To ensure we stick
to these commitments, the PCC works under the terms of
a tough Complainants' Charter. This means we will be able
to improve standards of service to the public year on
year.
It is our aim to ensure that the PCC is accessible to all. That is why we: operate a local rate helpline to assist members of the public in making complaints; publish details on how to make a complaint in a range of minority languages - including Welsh, Urdu, Bengali, Arabic, Somali and Chinese; maintain this Internet site so that information is available 24 hours a day; have a 24 hour Advice line to handle emergency complaints around the clock; and operate a Textphone to assist deaf or hard of hearing people with enquiries. Details of the Helpline, Advice line and Textphone are available here.
Proof of the accessibility
of the Commission is the increasing number of complaints to
it. Over the past three years the number of complaints we receive
has risen to around 4,700 each year - the majority of
them about inaccuracy - a sign not of declining journalistic
standards but of public recognition of the work of the PCC.
Self regulation works because
the newspaper and magazine publishing industry is committed
to it. Throughout the fifteen years of the PCC, every critical
adjudication against a newspaper or magazine by the Commission
has been printed in full and with due prominence. When the Commission
receives a complaint, editors now never do anything other than
seek to defend themselves in terms of the industry's Code of
Practice - a sign of their commitment to it. A further sign
of this commitment is that adherence to the industry's Code
is written into the contracts of employment of the vast majority
of editors in the country - something which gives the PCC real
teeth.
The reason for this commitment is that the Press Complaints
Commission administers a Code written by editors and for editors.
But that does not make the PCC simply a tool of the newspaper
industry. Far from it: the Commission has a decisive majority
of lay members on it - ensuring that, although it is funded
by the industry for the benefit of complainants, the PCC is
clearly independent of it. Our system of appointments also ensures
that lay appointments to the Commission are themselves made
by a body of distinguished lay people who are also independent
of the press.
Central to the work of the PCC and to the Code of Practice is the added protection it gives to particularly vulnerable groups of people. The Code gives special protection to children, innocent relatives and friends of those convicted of crime, victims of sexual assault and patients being treated in hospital. It also includes rules on discrimination to protect individuals at risk of racial, religious, sexual or other forms of discrimination. For information about how specific clauses of the Code can be relevant to particular groups of people click here.
The PCC also does an
increasing amount of proactive work with groups of people like to need to know
about our work, such as Coroners, the police, witness services and bereavement
support groups. There is more information about this work in the Dialogue with
the Community section of the site.
The PCC from time to
time issues special guidelines to editors which are designed to add even further
to this protection. In 1997, for instance, the Commission issued
guidelines on the portrayal in the media of persons suffering
from mental illness. Other specific areas the PCC has tackled
include the identification, against their wishes, of lottery
winners.
In 2001, the Commission
produced practical advice to help people suffering from press
harassment and acted to emphasise the need for care in the reporting
of matters involving race and religion.
In 2009, the Commission published briefing notes on the
reporting of suicide; and on the payment to parents for material about their
children, in the wake of the Alfie Patten case.
Maintaining
a free, responsible press
One of the central benefits of
press self regulation is that it combines high standards of
ethical reporting with a free press. Statutory controls would
undermine the freedom of the press - and would not be so successful
in raising standards. A privacy law, too, would be unworkable
and an unacceptable infringement on press freedom. It would
be of potential use only to the rich and powerful who would
be prepared to use the Courts to enforce their rights - and
would be misused by the corrupt to stop newspapers from reporting
in the public interest. Self regulation has none of the problems
of the law - yet still provides a system in which editors are
committed to the highest possible ethical standards.
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