APPENDIX 110
Memorandum submitted by Kerry Pollard
JP MP
I made a complaint to the Press Complaints commission
last year regarding a factually incorrect story in the St Albans
Observer. The story's headline stated that "villagers"
of Bricket Wood in my constituency were angry about my reduced
price keep fit club membership. The headline was only backed up
with one villager's quote.
The reduced membership was one which any member
of the public could have taken advantage of at the time when I
joined. The story was potentially a damaging one, making an inferred
allegation against me and yet the PCC merely suggested that I
should submit for publication a Letter to the Editor to put the
record straight.
I have a policy of not submitting letters to
the Editor, but in any case I do not feel the onus was on me to
submit a correction, but on the paper itself to correct the story
within the news pages where the offending story appeared. Another
complaint was that the reporter phoned the office, spoke to and
quoted my diary secretary despite knowing that the normal procedure
would be to speak to my press officer.
I therefore feel that the PCC appeared in this
instance to lack teeth, a state of affairs which would discourage
people to take out a complaint and encourage the media to believe
it can act without fear of comeback.
With regard to the system of registering a complaint,
my assistant had to insert into boxes on-line information which
was then put together in the form of a rather disjointed letter
to the local paper editor.
21 January 2003
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