Page 289 - Law and the Media

Law and the Media
Have an independent chairman and no more than 12 members, with smaller
complaints committees
Have clear conciliation and adjudication procedures, with a fast-track procedure
for the correction of significant factual errors
Not operate a waiver of legal rights as a required prerequisite to having a complaint
heard.

Finally, Calcutt recommended that:

If the industry wishes to maintain a system of non-statutory self-regulation, it must
demonstrate its commitment, in particular by providing the necessary money for
setting up and maintaining the Press Complaints Commission.

The industry took the warnings to heart. Within a few months of the Calcutt Report, a Press
Standards Board of Finance had been established. It eventually decreed that the Press
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Complaints Commission should have an annual budget of £1 2 million, a fund that, of course,
would be provided by the newspaper industry. In its last year of existence, the Press
Council’s budget was £600 000.

In October 1990, Lord McGregor of Durris, who in 1977 chaired the Third Royal
Commission on the Press, was appointed the first Chairman of the proposed Press
Complaints Commission.

By mid-December a Code of Practice was issued, and two days after Christmas the names
of the Commission’s 16 members were announced. They included seven current editors of
newspapers or magazines, the executive Vice-Chairman of Times Newspapers, a former
editor-in-chief of the Press Association, and a former Northern Ireland Secretary.

Public confidence in the effectiveness of press self-regulation was firmly established by
1995. That year, the News of the World published a picture of Countess Spencer, the
stepmother of the Princess of Wales, in clear breach of the Code of Practice. Rupert
Murdoch, whose Fox Corporation owned the News of the World, publicly condemned the
editor. This condemnation dispelled any doubts in the mind of the public as to whether the
Code of Practice was taken seriously by the press. Since then, the public has been able to
complain in the confidence that they will be taken seriously by the party against whom they
are complaining.

17.3 The Press Complaints Commission

17.3.1 Structure

The cornerstone of the newspaper industry’s system of self-regulation is the Press Standards
Board of Finance Ltd (Presbof). Presbof was incorporated as the representative body of the
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