Memorandum submitted by Mr Piers Morgan
the Editor of the Daily Mirror
Last week you e-mailed my secretary to invite
me to give oral evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Select
Committee in relation to their "Privacy and Media Intrusion"
inquiry. I will happily give evidence to the Select Committee
and hope that we will shortly be able to arrange a mutually convenient
date in late February-March.
As I understand it the Committee wishes to focus
on people who are "not generally in public life".
The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has been
very effective over the last 10 years in changing the media's
behaviour. Self-regulation has been, and continues to be, extremely
effective and should, I firmly believe, be allowed to continue.
On the two specific points—Privacy and
Media Intrusion—what I will tell the Committee is that in
my experience, as the editor of the Daily Mirror, privacy
is almost exclusively something that is of concern to celebrities
or, to put it another way, people who are in public life. All
of the major legal battles about privacy in the last few years
have involved public figures and are therefore not the sort of
people who the Committee wish to look at.
The Daily Mirror gets very few complaints
concerning privacy. The majority of complaints from people not
generally in public life concern accuracy which is obviously something
which is covered by the PCC Code of Practice (clause one).
As well as being mindful of our obligations
under the PCC Code the Committee ought to be aware that I introduced
in early 2001 a "For the Record" column into the Daily
Mirror so that we could correct inaccuracies that appeared
in the paper or clarify points if there was anything published
which was misleading or unclear.
As regards "Media Intrusion" this
is, I believe, really something which exists in people's imagination
rather than in reality. Of course on occasions the press can trouble
people, when they do not want to be troubled, but in this regard
ordinary members of the public (as well as celebrities) have the
protection of the PCC's Code of Practice so that if they do not
wish to speak to the media then they are entitled to ask the media
not to trouble them. This sometimes happens and, like all responsible
newspapers, if we are asked not to contact people or question
them then we do not do that. It is very rare that we have a complaint,
either directly or through the PCC, on the basis that we have
harassed people.
7 February 2003
| 
