Papers should be required to print retractions and non-typo corrections at the same level of importance as the original story. At the moment a paper can print a sensationalist story splashed across page 1 knowing they can print the following week’s retraction tucked away in tiny print on page 26. If they knew they would have to use valuable front page space retracting their story, they might put a bit more effort into research.

‘Papers should be required to print retractions and non-typo corrections at the same level of importance as the original story.’

Absolutely.

I’d also like to see blogs credited where credit is due but I’m not sure about putting this on the statute books. Compared with Phil Evans’s point above it’s rather trivial.

Acknowledgement of mistakes, apologies for mistakes the right to reply are more consistant with free speech than what is essentially an extension of copyright.

I’d second Phil’s point, I think we all want that but I’m dubious if it is something the press would ever consider doing. For example, The Star would be fucked (feature not bug), and I can see papers leaving the PPC rather than going out of business.

I do think it’s worth coming up with a short list of reasonable (if not overdue) suggestions for this annual review process and putting them forward as a group (i.e. in newsworthy numbers)

I suspect the PCC will attempt to carry on as before (i.e. as a pathetic figleaf), so if it fails as a submission, the process still functions as an awareness-raising* campaign, highlighting what the PCC is and where/how it fails, often at a remit level.

If you’re interested in chatting about this, contact details are on my website.

Cheers all.

(*If you think that’s a waste of time, I present as evidence Iain Dale’s claim that he launched his Ashcroft-funded political magazine Total Politics and ran it for months without signing up to the PCC because he thought it only applied to newspapers. Not that I believe him… more that he would be relying on a significant level of ignorance if he expected to get away with a lie.)

Remove editors from the board of the PCC. revise the rules regarding whether a complaint will be dealt based on whether the complainants are family and close friends only. I do not have to be related to someone to be offended by them being insulted, lied about etc.

Papers should be required to print retractions and non-typo corrections at the same level of importance as the original story.

I think this is among the most important suggestions. And it should apply to webpages too.

Agreed: Like-for-like prominence of printed corrections and apologies is a priority, as is a correction-or-apology-at-original-URL requirement.

These are two suggestions mirroring my critique of Baroness Buscombe:

The Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission to be a figure of political and commercial neutrality. No whip in the Lords, no stake or commercial relationship with regulated newspapers.

That they should have a vague idea about the media they want to regulate. Not sure how to frame this .

Matt
Link to my longer comment: http://bit.ly/petabuscombe

if all newspapers had an independent readers’ ombudsman like the guardian, we probably wouldnt need a pcc in the first place… efficiency savings all round!

Get rid of self regulation. Make it independent. The board should be elected and anyone over 16 should be allowed to vote and stand for election (self nomination). This should mean that the people making the decisions are more like the general readership rather than the general ownership as it is at the moment. The borad should elect one board member as chair and be able to vote for a re-election of the chair. This is all basic democracy, why can’t we see more of it?.

Once the commission is representative, then change the tariffs. For a minor infringement the front and back pages must be blank except for the masthead. For more serious infringements the paper would miss a day of publication. For really serious infringements, just increase the number of days of non-publication. Hit the owners where it hurts the most, and then the editors will start to think a bit more carefully about what they are doing.

I agree with Matt Wardman, especially about it becoming independent of editors – that’s just a cartel.

Richard Blogger, I actually find it rather disturbing that views such as yours are enterring in to mainstream political debate. If regulation isnt self regulation – based upon voluntary membership of an organisaiton – then it is effectively censorship. I don’t believe that the demos even should have a veto on what newspaperss are allowed to print and what they are not allowed to print. In fact I am quite interested in protecting the right to publish that which the mass of the population find distasteful or offensive.

Reuben,

What is being suggested here is accountability, not censorship.

Sorry but you will have to elaborate a bit otherwise you are simply playing word games. Accountability to whom? If the press is accountable, as richard seems to want, to an external body over which they have no control and to which they do not voluntarily submit, then this does potentially lead to censorship.

@reuben: If the press is accountable, as richard seems to want, to an external body over which they have no control and to which they do not voluntarily submit, then this does potentially lead to censorship.

To be accountable to a body over which one has control is not to be accountable at all in any meaningful sense of the word.

reuben,

The PCC has asked for comments, yes?

At the moment, however ineffectual I might think it is, it does at least have an ability to comment on egregious stories in the press, and sometimes get corrections published.

Do you think that investigating a story that has already been published constitutes censorship, rather than good practice? If you do, then any criticism of the aforesaid story is a form of censorship.

If the print media wishes to have something other than the fig leaf of the current PCC then widening it’s membership to something other than editors and the like would seem to me to be a good move. It would increase their credibility, would it not?

Reuben

What is self-regulation? It is simply sweeping under the carpet: we say that they did nothing wrong, nothing to see, so move along please. The PCC needs to be able to look at press complaints with an independent, critical eye. And they need to have real teeth.

What about inc guidance on the proper reporting of scientific evidence? It is common practice when a public opinion poll is published to state the sample size, what the respondents were asked, whether responses were weighted, the sample profile etc.

Reporting of the MMR vaccine, cervical cancer vaccine and climate change show that certain publications need to be more responsible in the way they report science.

Why not encourage journalists, instead of simly saying “scientists say…”, to make sure they state whether the claims are published in academic journal, have they been peer reviewed, what (if any) relevant qualifications does this scientist(s) hold, what the source of the information is (i.e. did it come from a press release), whether the raw data is available, does the scientist work for an academic institute and do they recieve any income from an interested industry?

I suspect the problem here is a (wilfull?) ignorance of the scientific method and modern science though. I think this merits it’s own guidline, even if the PPC would argue that it is covered by guidelines on general accurate reporting.

I don’t know how this could be worded but if someone is a spokesman for some organisation, there should be some indication of the size, power and standing of the organisation. I don’t mean well known outfits like the Women’s Institute or the Scout Movement or Conservative Party but obscure organisations. X from United Against Fascists (5000 members, 50 branches or what have you), Anjem Choudary from Al-Muj (20 members, regarded as a nutter). I’m thinking mostly of fringe Muslim organisations which are given the coverage that their size and power don’t warrant, as if they were in some way representative of all Muslims.

Competence over violation of ip rights and moral rights of authors/photographers.

e.g., when copy of photos are reproduced without authorisation.

See:
http://www.charliebeckett.org/?p=2289