Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Written Evidence


APPENDIX 106

Memorandum submitted by Mr Peter Bradley MP

  I was delighted to learn that the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee is to undertake an inquiry into the effectiveness of the Press Complaints Commission.

  Further to our recent conversation, I enclose copies of correspondence which passed between myself and the Press Complaints Commission first about the Sunday Times serialisation of Jonathan Aitken's memoirs in 2000 and more recently about the Daily Mail's serialisation of Lord Archer's diaries [not printed].

  In both cases I argued that Clause 16 of the PCC's Code of Practice, which purports to prevent payments by newspapers to criminals, had been breached.

  In the case of Jonathan Aitken, it remains my view that the Clause had been flouted in both spirit and letter. In Lord Archer's case, it had certainly been breached in spirit.

  However, in both cases the PCC rejected my complaint. Worse still, particularly in the Aitken case, it resorted to what in my view amounted to extraordinarily specious arguments in order to defend both the actions of the newspaper and its own decision.

  I also enclose a copy of my recent letter to the code of Practice Committee in which, in the light of my experiences, I propose a series of recommendations as to how, if the PCC is committee to its Code, it might sensibly amend the draft of Clause 16 [not printed].

  However, I have had my doubts as to whether the PCC is serious about its responsibilities in policing a "voluntary regulation" of the press. My experience is that it serves the press rather better than it serves the public. It fulfils the function of a trade association defending the interests of its members which, after all, make up its membership, nominate many of its Commissioners and provide its funding. Under those circumstances, it is difficult to see how the PCC can be truly independent. It certainly cannot be seen to be so.

  It is now some 13 years since David Mellor memorably warned that newspapers were "drinking in the last chance saloon". In the 12 years of its existence, the PCC has done little to rein in their worst excesses. Indeed, it has bought the odd round itself.

  Perhaps the most startling feature of the correspondence which I now enclose [not printed] is the PCC's apparent inability to distinguish between the public interest on the one hand and that which may be construed to be of interest to the public on the other.

  Indeed, it is the artful facility with which some newspapers merge one with the other which provides them with the spurious justification for many of their indefensible invasions of privacy of individuals. It is bad enough that newspapers believe that they can rely on this defence. That their regulatory body more often than not accepts it is of considerable concern.

  I believe that the PCC has outlived its usefulness if ever it had any. It should be replaced by a truly and transparently independent body with a statutory power not to censor but to apply as soon as possible after an offending publication the kinds of public censure and financial penalty to newspapers which will deter them from the kinds of excesses with which we have become all too familiar in recent times.

  The first task of any such body would be to draw up a charter which, unlike the PCC's Code, would be unambiguous in its requirements and straightforward to enforce.

  For the sake of completeness, I should point out that I made a third complaint, in May this year, about a flagrantly inaccurate report in the Sunday Express. The PCC, which upheld my complaint, were very helpful in this case. However, by the time its decision had been issued, ten weeks had passed and the newspaper's note of regret had become irrelevant.

  I hope that the above and my enclosures are of interest to you and would be more than happy to elaborate on them should you find that helpful.

20 December 2002


 
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