Press Complaints Commission >> About the PCC >> Annual Reports >> 2004 >> Chairmans Report

Report of the Chairman of the Commission

The PCC’s claim, emblazoned across the front of this report, is that we are ‘fast, free and fair’. Within these pages are details of how we worked to live up to that motto in 2004, the year in which more complaints were amicably resolved than in any other in the Commission’s history. The report also outlines the scope of the Commission’s work beyond the investigation, resolution and adjudication of complaints against the editorial content of British newspapers and magazines. It shows what the Commission does to raise its profile, to promote the use of the Code of Practice, and to advise potentially vulnerable groups of people. It identifies areas where the Commission has sought to raise editorial standards further, such as through the publication of Guidance notes. It underlines how the Commission is a body for the whole of the United Kingdom, and not just concerned with publications from one particular country within the UK or with one particular sector of the industry. It demonstrates how its flexibility and accountability has delivered results for people from all walks of life who have had a problem with a newspaper or magazine.

This report also paints a fascinating picture about the nature of privacy. Despite the wilder prophecies of some commentators, there has still been no rush to the courts to test the extending law of confidence and the application of the Human Rights Act. Of course, the long-running action by Naomi Campbell against the Daily Mirror finally came to an end last May – although this related to a story that was by then 3 years old. But the Commission remains the favoured forum for the resolution of privacy complaints. While lawyers picked over rulings in a tiny number of legal cases – one of the most significant of which, the Princess Caroline case, did not even concern the UK press – the Commission concluded 218 investigations into privacy complaints. Just over half of these – 127 – involved possible breaches of the Code. Those complaining ranged from the rich and famous on the one hand, to ordinary members of the public who were thrust into the media spotlight on the other. This broad range of complaints about privacy enabled the Commission to consolidate the experience it has built up over the years, and ensure that it continues to produce consistent and common-sensical rulings that add to its case law. More details about the Commission’s approach to privacy are set out on page 6 of this report.

Investigating accuracy complaints under Clauses 1 and 2 of the Code continues to provide the Commission with the bulk of its work. Of the 713 that the Commission received last year, 333 were found to raise a possible breach of the Code of Practice. The Commission’s team of five complaints officers negotiated offers to resolve 327 of these. The remaining six were upheld at adjudication. These figures are a clear riposte to those who believe that there should be a legally-enforceable right of reply. There is simply no need for one.

They are also a tribute to the quality and hard work of the Commission’s full time staff. It is still not well known that these people are not journalists. The Commission treasures its independence and as such does not employ people who have been professional journalists. Indeed, the industry has no hand in administering the PCC beyond indirectly funding it. What is more, following the reforms that I announced upon my appointment as Chairman in 2003, 60% of the board of the Commission are now independent of the industry. The presence of the 7 editors on the Commission – the sole representation that the industry has within it – is absolutely vital if we are to continue to issue sensible adjudications that command respect within the industry that we are regulating and beyond. But the Commission is dominated by people from outside the industry. Few of those people can claim to have contributed so much to its success as Professor Robert Pinker. He retired from the Commission in 2004. He had been a founding member of the Commission, and had served on it for thirteen and a half years, including 15 months as Acting Chairman. One of the great tributes to the PCC is the extent to which it is copied around the world – and Bob Pinker has been at the forefront of spreading the gospel of self-regulation in all four corners of the globe. He was rightly honoured in the 2005 New Year’s Honours List with the CBE for services to the Commission.

The success of self-regulation of the press and the Code of Practice is in some ways invisible, and cannot be recorded here. It is to be found in the true but intrusive stories that are not published, in the harassment that is stopped and in the problems that are settled directly with complainants. Credit for all of that goes to editors and journalists themselves. And it is their willingness to put things right when mistakes have been made that accounts for the record number of complaints that we are able to resolve. The Code of Practice is the industry’s own set of rules – and I am pleased to record that, on the whole, it seems determined to make them work.

Sir Christopher Meyer, KCMG
Chairman

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