Our Service In Action

As has been made clear elsewhere, the primary aim of the PCC is to bring about the resolution of all complaints that raise a possible breach of the Code whenever it can.

This means, in practice, that the Commission’s team of five complaints officers devote much of their time to negotiating appropriate offers from editors in order to bring about the amicable settlement of complaints to the satisfaction of complainants. In turn, the culture of conciliation fostered by the PCC over recent years has ensured that editors – almost without exception – make every effort to provide remedial action to complaints when asked to do so.

It is a striking achievement that of the 333 accuracy cases that raised a possible breach of the Code, the Commission’s complaints officers brokered offers to resolve all but 6 of them. Not all these offers were accepted.

Complaints can be resolved under any of the 16 clauses of the Code through a variety of means. In 2004, the PCC was involved in the negotiation of:

56 Corrections

75 Clarifications

48 Published apologies

43 Annotations of records

67 Private apologies

86 Published letters

38 Undertakings

27 Points of further action (including explanations, private settlements etc)

Some examples of resolved complaints are set out below:

The Headmistress of a school in Londoncomplained that the newspaper had published a photograph, of a celebrity sitting on the school wall, in which two pupils – standing behind the wall on school property – were clearly visible. The complaint was resolved when the newspaper, which immediately accepted that it had breached the Code, sent a personal letter of apology to the complainant and gave an undertaking as to future practice in regard to this issue.

A lawyer complained that an article on a Disciplinary Tribunal in which she was involved contained major inaccuracies, including the wrong outcome. This gave the impression that the complainant was “struck off” when in fact she had won her case. The complaint was resolved when the newspaper – which acknowledged the errors in the report which originally came from a news agency – removed the offending article from its website and swiftly published a correction and apology.

A doctor complained that an article had used the terms ‘asylum seekers’ and ‘illegal immigrants’ interchangeably. The complaint was resolved when the newspaper published a letter from the complainant, annotated its files to reflect her concerns and reissued an internal guidance note on the subject.

A father complained that a court report referred to his son’s mental health and that the inclusion of such details was not directly relevant to the case. The complaint was resolved when the newspaper undertook not to publish any medical details in further articles which were not germane to the court case in question.

A singer complained that photographs of her published in the newspaper were intrusive. She made clear that the photographs, which were of her in a state of undress, had been taken when she was in a private villa, in a place in which she had a reasonable expectation of privacy. The complaint was resolved when the newspaper, which believed that the images were already in the public domain, published an apology to the complainant in which it accepted that their publication had been intrusive and reaffirmed its commitment to abide by the Code of Practice.

Further examples can be seen on the PCC website here.