Around 5% of the complaints received by the PCC are about magazines. Some cases are about celebrities or misleading front page teasers but the greater proportion are from people who are featured in ‘real-life' stories.

Ex-partners are particularly regular complainants when they are portrayed (by their former other halves) in a way they consider to be inaccurate. Of course, the story-teller is entitled to give their version of events, but magazines must still take care not to publish information that is inaccurate. It may not be enough simply to rely on the account of an individual who may have an axe to grind.

But accuracy is important to the story-teller too, and editors should recognise that - just because an individual has agreed to talk about their life - they do not give up their right to complain if published material is misleading. The PCC recently rebuked Closer magazine after it published an article about a woman who had a baby when she had not known she was pregnant. The story was based on interviews with the woman in question but she said the magazine had exaggerated a number of important points - particularly relating to the complainant's alcohol consumption, but also her recollection of the child's conception and how she felt about him on birth. The Commission agreed that the effect of this was to distort the story in serious breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy).

Complaints about intrusion and other matters are less frequent but are not uncommon. They are also potentially serious. When Chat magazine published an account of a woman's relationship with a violent partner, it made graphic reference to the fact that the man went on to commit murder. It also included an uncaptioned, staged photograph of a female body wrapped in bin liners, which was how the actual body was discovered. The family of the murder victim (unaware that the story was to appear) complained that the piece intruded into their ongoing grief, especially as it was published on the first anniversary of her death. The Commission agreed, concluding that the magazine had "shown a total disregard for the family of the dead woman". Chat's "cavalier approach" constituted a clear breach of both the letter and spirit of Clause 5 (Intrusion into grief or shock) of the Code of Practice.

More recently, the Commission upheld a complaint against Take a Break magazine after it paid the daughter of a convicted arsonist for a story about her mother's crime and her claim that she was the victim of a miscarriage of justice (despite pleading guilty). The complainant was the victim of the arson.

Clause 16 of the Code forbids payments for stories to criminals or their associates which seek to exploit a particular crime unless there is a clear public interest. In this case, the Commission considered that the article did not contain anything of sufficient public interest to justify the payment. The piece amounted to an explanation about why the woman had pleaded guilty to the crime and did not point to any clear evidence of a miscarriage of justice.