Page 290 - Law and the Media

Professional Regulatory Bodies
entire press in the immediate aftermath of the Calcutt report into privacy and related matters
published in June 1990 (see Chapter 8). Its constituent members are the:

Newspapers Publishers Association
Newspaper Society
Periodical Publishers Association
Scottish Newspapers Publishers Association
Scottish Daily Newspaper Society.

In other words, all of the trade associations for the newspaper and magazine industry.

The stated purposes of Presbof are to:

Co-ordinate and promote self-regulation within the industry
Finance the Press Complaints Commission (the ‘PCC’)
Provide a ready means of liaison between the PCC and the industry
Monitor and review the Code of Practice through a Code Committee.

Below Presbof there exists an Appointments Commission charged with finding and
appointing suitable members of the PCC, and a Code Committee consisting almost entirely
of editors, the function of which is to review and, if necessary, amend or extend the Code of
Practice.

17.3.2 How complaints are dealt with
Figure 17.1 illustrates the step-by-step passage of complaints. At the outset complainants are
also told that the PCC will apply the following principles:

All complaints are judged against the Code of Practice. If there is no prima facie
breach of the Code, the PCC tells the complainant that it can take the matter no
further.
The objective of the PCC is to achieve a speedy resolution of the grievance. To that
end, it will normally deal only with complaints which are lodged within one month of
publication of the relevant story or, if the complainant first wrote to the editor, within
one month of the editor’s reply.
The PCC will not usually entertain complaints from third parties, in other words
anyone not directly involved in the published piece. In such circumstances, however,
it frequently writes to those who are concerned in the story asking if they wish to co-
operate in the complaint. If not, the matter goes no further. The PCC justifies this
principle on the grounds of practicality in that if the subject of the story does not wish
to give his or her side of things, the evidence is bound to be one-sided.
The PCC will not deal with a complaint if litigation in respect of a story is either in
progress or about to commence. At the conclusion of the PCC procedure there is,
however, nothing to prevent the complainant issuing proceedings.
253