Key rulings 2010
Accuracy
The accuracy of reporting accounts for the vast majority of the complaints the Commission receives, and there were a number of important rulings in 2010.
The Commission upheld three complaints in September 2010 against the Herne Bay Times, the Whitstable Times and the Canterbury Times after the newspapers had reported an allegation that a performer in a local operatic production was an "ex-heroin user". The claim had been made in an anonymous email. The individual had denied the allegation strenuously before publication yet the newspapers had gone ahead to publication.
In its ruling, the Commission made clear that there had been a 'clear editorial lapse' here. Although the complainant's denial of the allegation had been reported in the article, there was no suggestion that the newspapers had made other efforts to establish whether the claim had any basis in fact. The publication of the complainant's denial did not, the Commission ruled, absolve the newspapers of their own responsibility for care over the accuracy of the serious claim against him. The newspapers had not taken sufficient care over the accuracy of the information and the complaints were upheld as a result.
The Commission also upheld a complaint in September 2010 against the Daily Star about an article headlined "Muslimonly public loos". The front-page article had reported that a Rochdale shopping centre had installed "Muslim-only squat-hole loos" and that the local council had wasted taxpayers' money on them. The complainant argued that the facilities would be available to everyone and it was therefore inaccurate to state they were "Muslim-only". Nor was taxpayers' money involved, as the decision to pay for them had been taken by the shopping centre, not by the local council.
The newspaper, while claiming that the toilets had been designed with Muslims in mind, nonetheless accepted that both claims were inaccurate. It removed the original article from its website and offered to publish a page 2 correction.
In its ruling, the Commission made clear that it "was particularly concerned at the lack of care the newspaper had taken in its presentation of the story". It ruled that the two clear errors of fact would, in the circumstances, have misled readers "in a significant manner". The complaint was upheld.
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In March 2010, the Commission upheld a complaint about a blog entry by Rod Liddle on The Spectator website: this was the first time that the PCC has censured a newspaper or magazine in regard to the content of a blog.
The post claimed that 'the overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community'. A reader complained that the statement was incorrect.
While the Commission recognised that the nature of a blog post is often provocative and conducive to discussion - and that a number of readers had taken issue with the claim in the comments section - it did not agree that the magazine could rely on publishing critical reaction as a way of abrogating its responsibilities under the Editors' Code. While it had provided some evidence to back up the position, it had not been able to demonstrate that the 'overwhelming majority' of crime in all the stated categories had been carried out by members of the African-Caribbean community. Nor could it successfully argue that the claim was purely the columnist's opinion; it was, rather, a statement of fact. The Commission ruled 'the onus was on the magazine to ensure that it was corrected authoritatively online'. In the absence of such remedial action the Commission upheld the complaint.