PCC's annual report

The PCC has just released its annual report. Not surprisingly it again claims the year has been another success for self regulation: the rise in complaints to more than four and a half thousand is good, it says, but the small number of adjudications and fall in resolutions is also good. Sir Christopher Meyer will leave his job as chairman this month surrounded by the heady scent of smug self-satisfaction.
It will be interesting to learn how the Select Committee now investigating the PCC's activities views the PCC's performance after hearing the evidence of Gerry McCann and Max Mosley. The two men may have very different reasons for detesting the Press, but both believe that self-regulation is not a sufficient control.
Despite the 4,600 complaints, only 42 were adjudicated by the PCC with fewer than half upheld, most of these such gross breaches that there was little option but to uphold. To read the annual report of the PCC is lead one to believe that the British press is a paragon of professional virtue. It is doubtful if many recognise this as an appropriate description.

PCC starts new year with a bang

The PCC got off to a busy start in 2009, launching an investigation into its own complaint about several newspapers and websites covering the case of a man committing suicide with a chain saw. The Newspapers includ the Metro, The Guardian, Daily Star, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, The Sun, Daily Mirror and the Independent and their websites. The Metro (but not its website) and the Guardian did not have complaints upheld against them, but all the others, both print and websites, did have complaints upheld for giving too much detail about the suicide method and how the man had managed to kill himself.
The suicide clause is a new one for the PCC (see below) and one they are determined to uphold.

PCC and privacy

The Press Complaints Council has today release a new adjudication, upholding a complaint against OK! magazine for invading the privacy of a woman attending an AA meeting.
The article concerned a male celebrity attending an AA meeting with a friend - the complainant.
The article published information the complainant felt was private about her addiction and treatment. It also published a picture of her.
The adjudication is interesting for two reasons. First, the magazine made no attempt to suggest that this publication was in the public interest. Second that the magazine made no attempt to disguise the identity of the complainant even though the story was about the celebrity.
The story raises the age old issue of whether celebrities deserve less protection than ordinary people merely because of their celebrity. According to the Appeal Courts McKennitt verdict, it would depend upon the celebrity and the lengths they had gone to previously to protect their privacy. So, if we accept that there is a difference between celebrities and non-celebrities, and take into account this new adjudication, journalists would be well advised to prevent non-celebrities in circumstances such as these being identifiable and concentrate their stories on the celebrity - or find a good public interest defence.

PCC censures magazine for deception

Newspapers and magazines are not immune to deception. The Press Complaints Commission has censured Chat magazine for printing a staged picture of a murder victim, realistic enough to fool one of the family. The magazine failed to make it clear that the picture of the murder vicitm, wrapped in bin liners and printed beneath the heading "Beaten, raped and brutalised" was staged. The PCC upheld the complaint of inaccuracy but went on to say: "But of particular concern to the Commission was the fact that, in using the misleading picture near to the first anniversary of the death, the magazine also showed a total disregard for the family of the dead woman."
They said that the magazine's "cavalier approach" was a clear breach of the PCC code.
http://www.pcc.org.uk/cases/adjudicated.html?article=NDgyNw==

BCC and the sound of crying

The BBC has run into another row about deception according to the Guardian of November 16, 2007.
John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford released video of recently-born quintuplets and the BBC used the video, adding its own soundtrack of crying babies. The BBC told the Guardian: "We received the film without sound and although we don't believe viewers were materially misled, we should not have added sound to the pictures."
This is the latest such ethical mistake in a growing list for the BBC that includes premium phone line abuses, faked footage of the Queen and has led to Director General Mark Thompson to try to ban 'noddies' - the method used by TV journalists to allow cutaways and give the impression the interview was filmed by two TV cameras instead of the one that is all news can afford to send on most stories these days.
Adding sound or new backgrounds to video these days is very easy, but careful consideration needs to be given before doing it. I was approached recently by a private group to film my views in a rebuttal of a BBC programme. I was surprised at the use of a white muslin background for the recording, but even more surprised at the sumptious study in which I was shown in the final edit. Chromakey had done its work to set me in this new environment and whilst no-one was materially misled, the recording was not recorded where it was shown to have been recorded.
It is very easy to say that these additions do not materially change the truth, but they are a slippery slope to other editing tricks that do substantially change reality. Putting me in a study befitting a university professor may not be too bad even if the reality is that my study looks more like a library dumping ground. But if the background gave the impression that I was chatting amongst friends, some of whom were later cut into the edit to give views that made it seem I was responding to their promptings, an entirely incorrect picture might have been painted.
The same is true of added audio. Adding babies crying to film of a neo-natal ward may not be too deluding. But what if that crying were added to a documentary about orphanages in Eastern Europe to give the impression that these orphanages were ill-treating their charges? The same is true of adding music. News traditionally does not have a music soundtrack, making it unusual for TV and radio. Ths is clearly because of the emotive effect of soundtracks - it would be impossible to claim that news is unbiased if a sound track were added. But many documentaries now add sound tracks of music, setting the scene and pointing the viewer in a particular direction, often without them realising it.
Adding additional sounds or music, or changing a video background as well as adding or deleting items in pictures or video should be avoided at all costs in order to prevent misleading the audience. Only if some far worse ethical incident would occur if one did not, should this be considered. There's always one surefire way to be accused of manipulating the truth and attempting to deceive and that's by deliberately manipulating the truth.

PCC's new code

The PCC's new code on suicide found its first application recently with the Wigan Evening Post having a complaint against it upheld. The paper published a story from a coroner's court giving too many details about the death and "The Commission agreed with the complainant that the newspapers had included too much detail in describing how the suicide happened. " The PCC went on to say: "Inquests are held in public and newspapers are free to report their proceedings, but to abide by the terms of the Code – which sets out standards over and above the legal framework – the papers should on this occasion have been less specific about the method used".
Doubtless the newspaper published the adjudication as it is bound to do by the PCC's rules. However, it didn't take the issue seriously enough to take the story off its website, or to alter it and so at present date, it still remains available. The PCC took a decision in the early part of 2007 to take a regulatory responsibility for websites run by newspapers. Presumably, we can look forward to the Wigan Evening Post being not only the first paper to run foul of the new PCC regulations on suicide but also the first newspaper website to be castigated by the PCC.

Dealing in private information

The Department of Constitutional Affairs has published the responses to its consultation on dealing with private information. The consultation was asking if the penalties for dealing in such information should be increased to include custodial sentences. Those found guilty of buying or selling such information could be jailed. It's a difficult issue. Much information that is presently sold by criminals and others should remain private and there should be severe penalties for those who deal in such information, but there seems to be a strong view that this new legislation should be aimed at journalists and that criminals or others who seek to invade our privacy by hacking into our computers or bank accounts are not the major target. Journalists should be careful when dealing in private information. Only if revealing the information in support of a story that is strongly in the public interest should they consider buying it. However, such stories are, thankfully, published often enough to make sure that there should be strict safeguards to ensure that journalists are not jailed every time someone influential feels that their power is under threat.