Examination of Witnesses (Questions 873-879)
TUESDAY 8 APRIL 2003
MR IAN
LOCKS AND
MS JANE
ENNIS
Chairman: May I welcome you here this
afternoon and congratulate Jane Ennis on her appointment to the
Press Complaints Commission. Without any reflections on anybody
else, may I say that it is very nice to have a woman as a witness
because the whole of the rest of the afternoon is mono-sexual!
Michael Fabricant
873. Following on from that introduction, could
you explain the process by which you are appointed? I am curious
about how people are appointed on to the PCC? Is there a rota?
Do they say, "We want so many magazine editors, so many national
newspaper editors and so many regional editors"? How much
time do they say you are going to have to spend working on the
PCC and not on NOW Magazine? Can editors say, or did you say,
"I would like to serve on the PCC", or is it like the
freemasons where someone sort of sneaks up to you and whispers
in your ear in a dark alley? Perhaps you could explain?
(Ms Ennis) The approach came through the PPA—the
Periodical Publishers Association. I was just told that my name
had come forward and would I like to do it. My main worry was
the amount of time it might take up and whether I would be able
to devote that amount of time to it. I had several meetings with
Guy and with Ian to try and find out what it would involve. What
it does involve is looking through papers that come on a weekly
basis, which I have sent to my home. To look through those thoroughly
and make any sensible notes of them does take a couple of hours
a week. On top of that, there are the regular meetings, and they
would really wipe out a day because to look at the paperwork before
the meetings—
874. A day a week or a day a month?
(Ms Ennis) There are nine a year. You really need
to spend the morning going through the paperwork and then the
afternoon is devoted to the meetings. On the grounds that that
is the amount of time it would take, I agreed. I have only been
to one meeting so far. I have had lots of packs come through to
me but I have only been to one meeting.
875. Why do you think you were chosen? Was it
because of your personal background or because of NOW Magazine
not getting many complaints or maybe because NOW Magazine gets
lots of complaints?
(Ms Ennis) I do not know. I have a long background
in journalism, newspapers and magazines. I suppose NOW Magazine
is the one that might quite often be a cause of complaint. Some
magazines are completely blameless and never receive a complaint
in their lives. I suppose those two things made me a prime candidate.
876. Did you think, when you went on to the
PCC, that it might be helpful in respect to complaints made against
NOW Magazine? Be honest.
(Ms Ennis) No, not at all. Those are not at the forefront
of my mind. We have about two a year and all of them have been
settled quite amicably. Even though we do get them, we do not
get very many of them. No, I did not go into it with that in mind
at all.
877. You did say in your submission that you
turned down stories and phonographs?
(Ms Ennis) Yes, all the time.
878. Is that because of the fear that it would
be breaking the law if you were to publish those photographs or
you thought there might be civil action against you, or was it
because of the PCC Code? Which is the stronger?
(Ms Ennis) There is a whole mixture of things. Some
of them break the Code; some of them might bring you into trouble
with the law; and with others of them, you feel the readers would
be disgusted if they saw them. Public taste is a great dictator
of what pictures you may or may not want to use, but you do get
a vast variety of pictures coming through.
879. There is one area I want to ask you about.
The European Court of Human Rights, as you know, has held in a
judgment in the Geoffrey Peck case that it was unlawful and it
was wrong to use photographs of him, stills taken from a closed
circuit television camera of his attempt to commit suicide. There
is now this great balance going on as to whether or not we should
enshrine in British law rights of privacy. How would you feel
about that? There is going to be law one way or another. Would
you prefer to see law that evolves through case law like this
or would you feel more comfortable with statute law, which is
more clear and defined?
(Ms Ennis) I would prefer case law. I would like to
point out that there is a magazine exactly like mine in France
called Voici, which is a celebrity gossip magazine and
operates breaking the French privacy laws on nearly every page.
It has to run apologies on nearly every page, including the cover
sometimes, and it sells a damn sight more copies than I do.
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