• A media relations manager who frequently uses the PCC on behalf of her clients. In praising the Commission for giving practical advice about the Code of Practice she said that “I am quite sure that as a result of our contact with the Commission, many intrusive stories that would have otherwise appeared have not done so”.
• A publicist, who claimed that “I can assure you that the Code of Practice has been an invaluable tool in persuading journalists not to pursue lines of enquiry that we regard as intrusive”.
• An educationalist who advises schools about dealing with the media. He said that on those occasions that he had approached the PCC on behalf of a client, he had “found that the Commission has armed the school with sufficient information about its Code of Practice to enable it to deal with enquiries confidently and, consequently, to provide a basis for the protection of the privacy of the pupils affected by a particular story”. He added that “as far as I am concerned the PCC is accessible and gives quick and reliable advice, which in turn has prevented the Code from being breached on a number of occasions”.
• A solicitor who said that after one of his clients had received no satisfaction from a national newspaper they complained to the Commission, after which point “the complaint was resolved … amicably and swiftly. The alternative, which I would in the past have been more likely to pursue, would have been to bring libel proceedings. If that had been the case, I am in no doubt that the parties’ positions would have become entrenched and a huge amount of time and money would have been expended, possibly only to arrive at the same results”.
• A member of the public told the Committee that she had complained to the Commission about her local paper, and that she had “nothing but praise for the Commission, they dealt with my complaint with efficiency and great compassion”.
• The president of a society that supports transsexuals said that “the Press Complaints Commission is our only recourse to fair treatment with the press and media; to take that away or severely restrict its independence would allow certain papers to return to false allegations [about] members of the public”.

Following a number of sessions at which the Committee took oral evidence – including two with representatives of the PCC – the Select Committee’s conclusions were published in June 2003. Its measured findings proposed improvements to the Commission within the context of self-regulation. But, crucially, it acknowledged that:

• “Overall, standards of press behaviour, the Code and the performance of the Press Complaints Commission have improved over the last decade”;
• “the PCC [has] the confidence of the industry… the evidence we received from editors and journalists of national, regional and local newspapers and magazines was, to a great extent, extremely positive and complimentary about the impact that the Code and the PCC were having on press standards”;
• Among complainants, “there was a great deal of praise for the staff of the Commission in assisting [them] through the process”;
• PCC jurisprudence on privacy was “more developed than that of any other regulator”; and that
• The “Commission showed it resolved the vast bulk of the valid complaints presented to it without having to resort to formal adjudication and that it did so with great speed”.

In publishing its response to the Select Committee, the Commission made clear that it was grateful for the constructive manner in which the Committee approached the inquiry, and indicated that while it could not take forward all its suggestions, there were a number of useful points that it would consider. The Commission’s full response to the Select Committee can be read here

Payments to criminals

A major issue for the Commission last year concerned payments to criminals. The Commission has long been clear that it may launch an investigation into this contentious issue either as a result of a complaint from a member of the public or of its own volition, if it believes it to be in the public interest to do so. Last year, two such own volition complaints were adjudicated – after The Guardian paid a man who was in the same prison as Jeffrey Archer, and the Daily Mirror paid the farmer Tony Martin on his release from jail – although the Commission made numerous preliminary inquiries of other newspapers to establish whether or not payments had been made. Another prominent adjudication concerned a payment by the Daily Record to a man who had a conviction in relation to a murder case. The father of the murdered woman complained.

As a result of the unusually high number of prominent cases involving payments to criminals, the Commission published a paper which outlined its approach to dealing with such complaints. It made clear that:

• The Commission has always taken a liberal view of the serialisation of books;
• The Commission is unlikely to censure a publication when there is no direct payment to the criminal or their associate: for instance, when a payment is made to charity in order to secure the material;
• Newspapers are most unlikely to be criticised if they can demonstrate that the material concerned was published in the public interest;
• The Commission will take into account the extent to which the article made new information available to the public;
• It will bear in mind whether or not the article glorified crime – there is no example of the Commission rejecting a complaint about an article that did so.

Occasions on which the Commission is likely to censure a newspaper are generally confined to those where a newspaper or magazine paid for stories about romance or sex, irrelevant gossip which might intrude into the privacy of others, and the glorification of crime.

Payments to witnesses

The annual review for 2002 was published as the Commission and the Code Committee were involved in negotiations with the Lord Chancellor’s Department about how self-regulation might best deal with concerns that had arisen as a result of payments to witnesses in the trials of schoolteacher Amy Gehring in 2002 and the pop star Gary Glitter in 1999. The Code was successfully amended as the Chairman of the Code Committee reports on page 17 of this review.

The Commission investigated one major issue of its own volition about payments to witnesses in 2003. This related to the payment to a man who was a potential witness in the trial of men accused of plotting to kidnap Victoria Beckham. While the Commission could find no breach of the Code as it stood in November 2002, it warned that the new clause is far tighter and indicated that – as the payment was issued to the potential witness after arrests had been made – there would have been a breach of the new Code.

Expanding privacy case law

A number of important privacy adjudications were made in 2003, which underlined that everyone – whether a member of the public or a notorious public figure – is entitled to protection from the Code. In upholding a complaint from Peter Foster that private telephone conversations had been intercepted and published by a national newspaper, the Commission made clear that:

“eavesdropping into private telephone conversations – and then publishing transcripts of them – is one of the most serious forms of physical intrusion into privacy… The Commission expects a very strong public interest justification [in such cases] – and the newspaper’s defence did not meet it”.

The strong protection afforded by the privacy provisions of the Code extend as much to members of the public as anyone else. This was exemplified when the Commission upheld a complaint about an article in a local newspaper that named a man whose baby had died just a couple of years after a previous similar tragedy. The Commission, which considers the protection of such vulnerable people to be at the heart of its work, concluded that:

“the piece could have served the public interest just as well without naming the male complainant and [his] daughter. In upholding the complaint the Commission wished to make clear that it regretted that the complainants had been caused gratuitous distress at such a difficult time”.

Legal developments

2003 was a year of steady but unremarkable development in the manner in which the Human Rights Act is being applied to the media. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas’s modest damages against Hello! Magazine were restricted to compensation for breach of confidence rather than any offence under the Human Rights Act. Other cases have shown that judges appear reluctant to extend Article 8 of the Act, which protects privacy, to the media. The Commission believes that while editors continue to show respect to the Code of Practice, to which the Act refers, and while the Commission continues to adjudicate consistently and robustly on privacy complaints, this situation can be maintained.

Data Protection Act

Last year the Commission heard a number of alarming stories from editors about the restrictive manner in which the Data Protection Act has been interpreted by local authorities, the police, schools and so on. It understands that this has caused considerable difficulties for some journalists – particularly on local and regional newspapers – and it welcomes attempts to clarify the scope of the Act in relation to information that can be released to newspapers.

However, it also became apparent that there has been confusion in some quarters about how the Act might affect journalists and news organisations, particularly regarding some newsgathering methods. The Commission is therefore consulting with the industry about the production of a guidance note on the subject. A further report will be made in next year’s annual review.

Protecting the public from physical intrusion

In addition to the out of hours pager service – launched in January 2003 to enable members of the public to contact an experienced case officer for advice at any time – the PCC has also been co-operating with other media to find ways of dealing with what has been referred to as ‘collective harassment’. This might occur when an individual is at the centre of a major story that is of interest to journalists from television and radio as well as newspapers. Means of communicating messages from those at the centre of such stories asking journalists to cease contacting them are being examined.

There were around 40 out of hours calls last year to the Commission’s duty officer – although not all related to potential harassment complaints. The number is 07659 152656.

Changes to the membership of the Commission

There have been numerous changes to the composition of the PCC since the publication of the last annual review.

Arzina Bhanji, Neil Wallis, and David Pollington have all retired from the Commission. The PCC is most grateful for everything that they have done for self-regulation.

In their place, the Commission welcomed:

• Dianne Thompson, the chief executive of Camelot;
• Peter Hill, editor of the Daily Express;
• Charles McGhee, editor of the Glasgow Evening Times.
• Jane Ennis, the editor of Now magazine, filled the editorial position that was vacant when the 2002 review was published.

It was also announced that Eve Salomon, a solicitor and former Director of Legal Services at the Radio Authority, would be appointed from the 1st January 2004 as the 10th public member of the Commission – and the first to be selected as a result of the open recruitment process announced as part of Sir Christopher’s 8-point plan for reform of the PCC.

Appointments Commission

All appointments to the Commission and Code Committee are ratified by an independent Appointments Commission – which adds a further layer of accountability to appointments to both bodies. The Commission is chaired by Sir Christopher Meyer and, apart from Philip Graf, the chairman of Pressbof, is made up of three other individuals who have no connection with the industry. They are:

• Lord Mayhew of Twysden QC (former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland);
• Sir David Clementi, (Chairman, Prudential plc);
• Baroness Smith of Gilmorehill (Chairman, Edinburgh Festival Fringe).
  

Pressbof and the Code Committee

There were major changes of personnel at Pressbof and the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee in 2003. Grahame Thompson was replaced as secretary of Pressbof by Jim Raeburn, the Director of the Scottish Print Employers Federation, and as secretary of the Code Committee by Ian Beales, who has served the committee as a member or consultant since its inception in 1991.

Sir Harry Roche retired as chairman of Pressbof in 2003 – having been its founding chairman 13 years previously. His contribution to the successful establishment of the Press Complaints Commission was enormous, and the Commission is hugely grateful to him for all the hard work that he has put in over so many years to ensure that it continues to be funded generously by the industry. He has been replaced by Philip Graf CBE, the former Chief Executive of Trinity Mirror.

Financial report

The PCC is free to use – and operates at no cost to the taxpayer either. The entire cost of its operation is met by the newspaper and magazine publishing industry. They pay a registration fee to the Press Standards Board of Finance (Pressbof) which in turn funds the Commission. This buttresses the Commission’s independence by ensuring that the PCC is not directly funded by the industry. These are extracts from the audited accounts for 2002, which were not available when the last annual review was published.